Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves for Russia next Wednesday to discuss the developments in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his office announced Thursday.

"Significant regional and international developments led by Syria are on the table to be discussed thoroughly," during Erdogan's visit, the written statement said.

Turkish leaders observed a moment of silence Friday at the funeral of two pilots of a fighter jet shot down by Syria last month in an incident that has escalated tensions between the two former allies.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan interrupted his vacation to attend the ceremony at the Erhac airbase, from which the F-4 Phantom took off before Syrian defense forces downed it over the Mediterranean Sea on June 22.

Syria's President Bashar Assad accused Turkey in an interview published Wednesday of giving logistical backing to Syrian "terrorists" and told Ankara to stop meddling in his country's affairs.

"Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities" in Syria, he told the daily Cumhuriyet in an interview published Wednesday, the first part of which it published a day ago.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with a prominent Kurdish lawmaker in a rare meeting Saturday to try and resolve a decades-old separatist conflict.

No statement was issued to the press after the one-and-a-half hour meeting which followed Leyla Zana's comments in a recent newspaper interview praising Erdogan as the head of the strongest government in Turkey's history.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey has no intention of attacking Syria over its recent downing of a fighter jet.

"As Turkey, the Turkish nation, we have no intention of attacking" Syria, Erdogan said during a military ceremony in Ankara.

Turkey branded its former ally Syria "a clear and imminent threat," on Tuesday as its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vented his fury over the downing of a Turkish fighter jet.

In his most outspoken criticism of the Damascus regime, Erdogan vowed to retaliate against the "heinous act" and promised a change of military attitude to any Syrian officer approaching the common border.

Saudi Arabia is set to pay the salaries of the rebel Free Syrian Army to encourage mass defections from President Bashar Assad's forces, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.

The payments would be made in either U.S. dollars or euros -- which would mean a rise in salaries as the Syrian pound has fallen sharply in value since the revolt started 16 months ago, the broadsheet said.

Turkey on Thursday praised the positive attitude adopted by the new French president toward relations with Ankara, saying that sanctions imposed on Paris would no longer be implemented.

"Sanctions will drop from the agenda thanks to this new stance adopted by France," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a televised interview, adding that he would be visiting Paris next month.

At least 13 prisoners died late Saturday after a fire broke out amid a mutiny at a southeastern Turkish jail holding around 1,000 prisoners, officials stated.

They were killed by smoke poisoning and at least five others were hospitalized when prisoners set fire to blankets and beds in the Sanliurfa city prison, Anatolia news agency reported, citing governor Celalettin Guvenc.

A Turkish prosecutor has linked a shadowy group the government suspects of being coup plotters to the 2007 murders of three Christian missionaries, media reports said Saturday.

The three members of a Bible publishing firm, including a German national, were tortured and killed in April 2007 in the eastern town of Malatya. Nine people are already on trial for the murder, of whom six are in jail.