Syrian opposition leader Ahmad Jarba has accused Hizbullah of keeping the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad on its feet, urging the new Lebanese government to stop the party's meddling in Syria to end internal discord in Lebanon.

“The regime is dead … but Hizbullah's support leads to the re-injection of the regime so that it gets strong,” Jarba told al-Joumhouria newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged youngsters not to become "slaves to the Internet" as he handed out free tablet computers to students.

The premier also used the occasion to again defend his government's controversial push to tighten control of the Internet, a move that has drawn widespread criticism.

The European Union has asked Turkey to contribute to a military mission to help end sectarian unrest in the Central African Republic, a Turkish official said Sunday.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton wrote a letter to Ankara on Friday asking about the prospects of Turkish assistance, the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Turkish anti-riot police on Saturday fired tear gas and water cannon at Kurdish protesters calling for the release of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan as the demonstration turned violent.

Some 100 Kurdish protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the police in the southeastern, Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, after a major demo marking the anniversary of Ocalan's 1999 capture by Turkish agents.

Turkey's parliament passed a bill Saturday tightening government control over the judiciary, with lawmakers violently scuffling over the contested reforms introduced amid a major graft scandal.

Fighting erupted overnight with fists flying in the air between ruling party and opposition lawmakers as the bill was debated in a marathon 20-hour sitting.

A new Internet control law in Turkey that has sparked outrage both at home and abroad could breach international human rights rules, the United Nations warned Friday.

"The law as it stands appears to be incompatible with Turkey's international human rights obligations, in particular those related to freedom of expression and the right to privacy," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Greece has placed in pre-trial detention four Turkish Kurds charged with belonging to a far-left extremist organization in Turkey, a judicial official said on Friday.

The four men, aged 24 to 53, are believed to belong to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left armed group that has carried out attacks in Turkey, the source said.

The former CEO of Turkey's state-run Halkbank, who was arrested two months ago in a wide-ranging graft probe engulfing key government allies, has been released pending trial on Friday, media said.

Suleyman Aslan was among 24 people including the sons of three former cabinet ministers who were charged and remanded in custody as part of investigations into bribery allegations.

Turkey's president said on Thursday he was trying to iron out problems in his country's new Internet laws that have sparked outrage both at home and abroad.

"There are one or two problematic areas," Abdullah Gul told reporters, in his first remarks since parliament cleared the Internet restrictions that some see as an attempt to silence dissent.

Turkish riot police on Thursday fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse some 2,000 protesters demanding the release of army officers jailed for plotting a coup.

"Freedom to patriots, end conspiracies," the protesters shouted as police blocked them from marching to parliament in the capital Ankara.