Turkish prosecutors have charged eight police officers with illegally eavesdropping on top officials including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, state media said Saturday.

The eight were charged with illegal wiretapping, as well as forging official documents, and were remanded in custody late Friday pending a possible trial, the state television channel TRT said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be an "active" head of state if he wins presidential elections in August and will play a particularly strong role in foreign policy, one of his government's most senior ministers said.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc signaled that Erdogan would be a stronger president than previous holders of the hitherto ceremonial post but insisted he would always act within the framework of the law.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sacrificed any possibility of Turkey playing a mediation role in Gaza in favor of seeking to impress voters ahead of presidential polls with the toughest ever anti-Israeli rhetoric from a Turkish leader.

Before the rise to power of Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) over a decade ago, NATO member Turkey was Israel's key ally in the Islamic world, a policy enthusiastically cheered by the United States.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has stopped talking to U.S. President Barack Obama on the phone, amid growing strains between Ankara and Washington over Syria and the Gaza conflict.

Turkey, a fierce opponent of Syrian President Bashar Assad and an open supporter of armed rebel fighters, felt betrayed when the United States backed away from military action against Damascus in September.

Turkish authorities on Tuesday arrested 55 senior police officers in a criminal probe over alleged corruption and abuse of office, the latest apparent crackdown on opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of presidential polls.

Forty serving and former top police officers were arrested in Istanbul, including the former head of the anti-terrorism unit of Istanbul police, Omer Kose, television reports said.

Two Turkish tourists were killed when flood waters surged through a canyon that is a major tourist attraction in western Turkey, with the mayor of the area saying their deaths were "God's will", media reports said Monday.

Unseasonably heavy rains prompted the flooding on Sunday at the Saklikent canyon in the Mugla region on Turkey's Aegean coast, which is hugely popular with tourists in the summer months.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires over criticism of Cairo's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in neighboring Gaza.

Turkey and Egypt withdrew their ambassadors last year after the military ousted Egyptian Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who had forged closer ties with Turkey's devout premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday slammed Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as an illegitimate tyrant, saying that Cairo could not be relied upon to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel.

"Is Sisi a party (to a ceasefire)? Sisi is a tyrant himself," Erdogan told reporters.

Israel on Friday ordered some of its diplomatic staff in Turkey to leave the country for security reasons, after protesters angered by its assault on Gaza sought to storm Israeli embassy buildings.

Turkish protesters overnight tried to break into the ambassador's residence in Ankara as well as the consulate in Istanbul, with the diplomatic controversy over the Gaza assault risking a new crisis in relations between Turkey and Israel.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday stepped up his rhetoric against Israel over its deadly air offensive on Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing "state terrorism" against the Palestinians.

Presenting himself as the sole world leader speaking up for the Palestinians, Erdogan said that any normalization in the troubled ties between Israel and Ankara was currently out of the question.