Syria

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on the sidelines of a weekend Group of Seven summit in Germany, the White House said on June 7.

The meeting will allow Obama to discuss the "situation on the ground and our effort to support Iraqi forces," senior White House aide Ben Rhodes told reporters in a conference call ahead of Obama's trip.

The extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group fought fierce battles June 5 with Syria's armed forces in a bid to seize control of Hasaki, a key provincial capital in the country's northeast as more refugees seek shelter in Turkey by the border. "Fierce clashes continued Friday [June 5] between regime forces and ISIL  south of Hasaki city.

Turkish authorities have detained a female Russian student as she attempted to cross into war-torn Syria, Russian authorities said June 5.

Moscow State University student Varvara Karaulova, 19, was found in the Turkish border town of Kilis after she vanished from the Russian capital, the interior ministry said in a statement.    

Some 400 academics and artists have expressed in a signed statement their support to daily Cumhuriyet and its editor-in-chief, Can Dündar, as both were subjected to an investigation after the daily picked up a story of trucks belonging to Turkey's top intelligence body which were stopped while allegedly attempting to carry weapons to Syria.

More than 3,000 Syrians fleeing clashes between Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Kurdish fighters have crossed into Turkey since June 3, a Turkish government official said.

Kurdish forces are trying to drive the militants out of Tel Abyad, in Syria's Hassakah province, close to the Turkish border town of Akçakale. 

A total of 2,469 migrants detained in Greece without proper travel documents were returned to their homelands in May, the Greek Police said Thursday.

Turkish police detained a young French woman who crossed back into Turkey after joining the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in neighboring Syria, a security official said June 4.

During a three-month stay in Syria, the woman married and then split up from a jihadist and was put in a jail operated by the ISIL group before being released, the official said.

A program to train and equip Syrian opposition fighters is not enough to save Syria and Iraq on its own, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu said June 4.

"We should save Syria and Iraq. It would be an over-optimistic approach if we depend merely on the train and equip program," the minister told news broadcaster A Haber.

Turkey's top judicial body has decided to permit the prosecution of five prosecutors and three gendarmerie commanders involved in the halting of Syria-bound National Intelligence Organization (M?T) trucks in Turkey's south last year.

The leader of the Al-Qaeda offshoot of al-Nusra in Syria spoke to Al Jazeera and stated clearly that he sees no end to the clash between his organization and ISIS. “There is no solution. We hope that they repent before God and come to their senses. If not, there is nothing left for us but to fight them”, he stated.