Speaker Nabih Berri rejected any negotiation with the jihadists who took more than 35 soldiers and policemen captive in the northeastern town of Arsal last week.

In remarks to As Safir newspaper published on Monday, Berri said: “Had Prime Minister Tammam Salam asked for my advice, I would have told him to resort to Qatar and Turkey to resolve this issue.”

Israel and Hamas on Monday stuck to a 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza as Egyptian mediators launched fresh talks with negotiators aimed at securing a permanent cessation of hostilities.

Quiet returned to the enclave from midnight (2100 GMT on Sunday), the fruit of days of Egyptian-brokered mediation to stem violence which has killed 1,939 Palestinians and 67 on the Israeli side since July 8.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday was on course for a crushing first-round victory in presidential elections to become a powerful head of state, amid fears his country is creeping towards one-man rule.

Erdogan was set to win 54.1 percent of the vote, way ahead of his main opposition rival Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu on 37.4 percent, Turkish television channels said, in results based on a 60 percent vote count.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is favourite to win Sunday's presidential election, climbed from a humble youth in Istanbul to become one of the most significant but controversial leaders anywhere in the Islamic world.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday roused tens of thousands of supporters with a call for a strong and new Turkey, as he held his final mass rally ahead of presidential polls he is widely expected to win.

"God willing a new Turkey will be established tomorrow. A strong Turkey will be born out of its ashes once more tomorrow," Erdogan told cheering loyalists in the conservative central Anatolian city of Konya.

Turkey's national flag-carrier airline said it resumed flights on Saturday to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil after suspending them for security reasons amid an offensive by Islamist militants.

However Turkish Airlines said in a statement that it would as a continued precaution only be flying to Arbil in daytime hours.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday called on voters to "explode the ballot boxes" with a mass show of support for his bid to become Turkey's new president in weekend polls.

Holding his penultimate mass rally in the Turkish capital Ankara ahead of Sunday's elections, Erdogan appeared supremely confident of garnering the majority needed for victory in the first round.

Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled at Istanbul's main Ataturk airport on Friday as a ferocious summer storm hit the city for the second day in a row.

Hundreds of passengers were stranded in the domestic terminal of the airport after their flights were canceled while international passengers were suffering delays of several hours, according to the airport.

The main opposition candidate in Turkey's presidential election rejected plans for a strong presidency as a "fantasy" of his rival Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that would not be accepted by the Turkish people.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a soft-spoken, bespectacled intellectual put forward by Turkey's main opposition parties, is expected to come second behind Erdogan in Sunday's polls, when Turks will directly elect their head of state for the first time.

Up to 800 people from Iraq's Yazidi community have fled across the border to Turkey after escaping a lightning offensive by jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group, Turkish officials said on Thursday.

The Yazidis are the latest victims of violence in the Middle East to find sanctuary in Turkey, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's open door policy resulted in the influx of over one million Syrian refugees into the country.