Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo next week to finalize a new government put together by the two factions, a top official of his Fatah movement said Tuesday.

The meeting was announced as Palestinian factions were in Cairo for reconciliation talks aimed at choosing a prime minister to head the unity government.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Tuesday and urged him to stop a bloody crackdown on protesters and launch reforms, Anatolia news agency reported.

Erdogan told the Syrian leader to "refrain from violence and end the unrest" that has swept Syria since anti-regime protests erupted in March, the report said.

Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday called on Bahrain to pardon two Shiite protesters sentenced to death over the killing of two policemen in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

"I ask the government of Bahrain to grant an amnesty for the two young people sentenced to death for participating in peaceful demonstrations," he said in a statement from his movement's headquarters in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

Jordanian MPs on Tuesday denied the king's motorcade was attacked with stones during a visit to a southern city, saying residents were jostling as they tried to greet the monarch.

"All what happened was that people and security forces were jostling as youths tried to see his majesty (King Abdullah II) and shake hands with him," MP Yehia Saud of Tafileh, 180 kilometers south of Amman, told Agence France Presse.

Six civilians were killed Tuesday and tanks were deployed near Syria's border with Iraq, activists said as President Bashar al-Assad came under sharp pressure to halt a crackdown on democracy protests.

The latest deaths came after fresh protests erupted in the eastern town of Deir Ezzor, a human rights activist told Agence France Presse, and troops pursued a scorched earth campaign in northern mountains, sending thousands fleeing.

Three opposition MPs on Tuesday quizzed Kuwait's prime minister in a secret session of parliament for allegedly harming national security by favoring ties with Iran over Gulf Arab states.

Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, said he was ready to face questioning as parliament accepted a government request to hold the grilling behind closed doors.

Palestinian factions were in Cairo on Tuesday for reconciliation talks aimed at choosing a prime minister to head a unity government.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's Fatah has said it wants to retain Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to head the government, but the nomination was immediately rejected by Islamist Hamas movement.

Israeli troops on Tuesday arrested an official from Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

A Fatah spokesman in Qalqilya confirmed Mohammed Walawil, 26, and his brother Tawfiq, 32, had been arrested at their home in the northern West Bank city in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of Israeli police are taking part in a training exercise in preparation for potentially large-scale Palestinian protests in September, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.

"There's an exercise that the police are carrying out... in order to deal with public order, maintaining public order, and dealing with widespread disturbances," spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Insurgents set off two car bombs and two suicide blasts, killing at least seven, in an al-Qaida style raid on government offices in central Iraq on Tuesday, mirroring a similar attack in March.

The dozens of gunmen taking part in the mayhem in Diyala's provincial capital of Baqouba also exchanged gunfire with Iraqi security forces, with officials warning that the toll, which included 17 wounded, could rise.