Turkey's government will seek new powers to crack down on violent demonstrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday, after dozens died in a wave of Kurdish-led protests over Ankara's policies in Syria.

"The Republic of Turkey would not be a state if it were not able to control a few thugs," Erdogan said in a speech in the northeastern town of Bayburt. "They may burn, but they will pay the price. We will go further," he said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday vowed to press on with efforts to make peace with Turkey's Kurds despite deadly pro-Kurdish protests, saying he would work for an agreement until "my last breath".

Protests by pro-Kurdish demonstrators angry at the government's policy on Syria have left 31 dead in Turkey and raised fears that the fragile peace process with Kurdish rebels could be derailed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of waging "state terror", equating the crimes of the Damascus regime with those of Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Ankara is concerned that the focus of the U.S.-led coalition on fighting IS extremists will take attention away from Turkey's long-standing aim of toppling the Syrian leader.

A proposal by Turkey for a buffer zone inside Syria has met with a guarded response from the international community, despite being a key condition for Ankara to step up its support for the fight against jihadists.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the last days has repeatedly called for the creation of a buffer zone to protect Turkey's security and house some of the over 1.5 million Syrian refugees who fled to the country.

Deadly protests in Turkey over the government's policy on Islamic State (IS) militants are aimed at sabotaging the fragile peace process between Kurdish rebels and Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday.

"It's very obvious that this game is aimed at sabotaging the peaceful environment in the east and southeast as well as the peace process and our brotherhood," Erdogan said in his first comments on the unrest that has left at least 22 people dead.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs minister Tuesday and "clarified" his diplomatic gaffe in which he suggested Saudi Arabia and other key allies had financed the Islamic State group, the White House said.

The United Arab Emirates has expressed surprise after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Gulf state had armed and financed jihadists in Syria, along with other regional powers.

Biden's remarks were "amazing and ignore the role of the Emirates in the fight against extremism and terrorism," the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, said in a statement carried late Saturday by the official WAM news agency.

United States Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over comments suggesting that Ankara and other regional powers had financed and armed jihadist organizations in Syria.

Erdogan reacted furiously earlier Saturday at comments made by Biden at Harvard University on Thursday, in which the vice president criticized allies in Turkey and the Arab world for supporting Sunni militant groups in Syria such as the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaida-linked Al-Nusra.

Turkey warned on Saturday it would not hesitate to strike back at Islamic State jihadists if they attacked Turkish troops stationed at Ankara's exclave inside Syria.

"We will absolutely not hesitate to respond if something happens there," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul, referring to the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman dynasty Osman I.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, known for his suspicion of new technology, declared he was "increasingly against the Internet every day" as he defended curbs on online freedoms, a journalists' rights group who met him said Friday.

However the presidency denied Erdogan was "anti-Internet", saying that he just wanted to raise the alarm over the use of the Internet by extremists.