A Turkish seismic ship set sail Friday for gas exploration off Cyprus, live television footage showed.

The ship "Piri Reis" departed from a local port in the Aegean province of Izmir, in an apparent response to a move by Greek Cypriots to press ahead with offshore gas drilling in the eastern Mediterranean.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey is willing to drop controversial plans for offshore gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean if its rival Cyprus is willing to do the same, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Erdogan made the comments to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon late Thursday on the margins of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, the agency said.

Hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in southern China and ransacked vehicles, leaving dozens injured in the latest unrest to hit China's industrial heartland, authorities said Friday.

It was the latest in a series of protests sparked by perceived social injustices in Guangdong, known as the workshop of the world for the tens of millions of migrant workers who toil in the province's factories.

Pakistan on Friday warned the United States that it could lose Islamabad as an ally if public accusations continue over its alleged involvement in major attacks against U.S. targets in Afghanistan.

"We have also conveyed this to the United States, that you will lose an ally. You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan. You cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people," Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told private Geo TV.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to continue efforts to make peace with Taliban-led insurgents in a speech on Friday at the funeral of the government's assassinated peace broker Burhanuddin Rabbani.

"The blood of the martyred (Rabbani) and other martyrs of freedom require us to continue our efforts until we reach peace and stability," Karzai said.

Dozens of people were killed during heavy fighting on Thursday in Sudan's war-torn border state of South Kordofan, the army and the rebels they are battling both said.

A spokesman for rebel group the SPLM-North said around 60 soldiers were killed in the attack on an army position in the state's Rashad district, in the early morning, while semi-official Sudanese media claimed that more than 30 rebels were killed.

Cyprus President Demetris Christofias Thursday denounced what he called Turkish provocations over exploration for hydrocarbon deposits off the divided eastern Mediterranean island's coast.

"Unfortunately, the effort of the Republic of Cyprus to exercise its sovereign right for exploitation of its marine wealth is met by threats of Turkey against Cyprus," he said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

A radical Kurdish group claimed responsibility Thursday for a bomb attack which killed three people in the center of the Turkish capital Ankara and threatened more.

In an email sent to the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said it carried out Tuesday's attack and warned: "It is only a beginning."

Fresh sleaze claims hit French President Nicolas Sarkozy's re-election hopes Thursday when the best man at his wedding was charged with graft by judges probing alleged kickbacks on an arms deal.

Just seven months before the French leader is to go to the country to seek another five-year mandate, Nicolas Bazire became the latest in a string of close allies to be confronted by a criminal investigation.

France is to withdraw around 200 troops from its 4,000-strong force fighting as part of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan before the end of next month, the military said Thursday.

"France will pull out the equivalent of a combat company and its support elements," Colonel Thierry Burkhard, spokesman for the French military staff, told reporters in Paris, confirming part of a previously announced plan.