The head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora held talks on Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara during which the Turkish official informed him of his positions on the developments in the Arab world.

The talks also discussed the latest developments in the region.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday to meet rebel governing council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Davutoglu arrived Tuesday morning in the rebel bastion, even as Moammar Gadhafi's forces staged a fightback in Tripoli against insurgents who had surged into the capital on Sunday.

African leaders will meet Thursday to pledge funds to tackle the famine in Somalia and extreme drought across the Horn of Africa which are putting millions of people at risk of starvation.

African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping will appeal to the continents' leaders and the international community to assist more than 12 million drought-hit people in the region, during a pledging conference in the Ethiopian capital.

Turkey believes it is too soon to call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, a government official told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"We are not there yet," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Mogadishu Friday for the first visit by a major leader in nearly two decades to witness the devastation wrought by a famine in the Somali capital.

Somalia is the country worst affected in the Horn of Africa by a prolonged drought that has been officially declared a famine by the United Nations in five regions in the country, including Mogadishu itself.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday of trying to "undermine Israel's legitimacy" by demanding an apology for the 2010 deadly flotilla raid.

"The Turkish prime minister wants to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel by demanding an apology that would constitute an admission of guilt and undermine our right to self-defense against attacks from Gaza," he told public radio.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed responsibility for an ambush on Wednesday in which Ankara said eight Turkish soldiers were killed.

"Our forces have carried out an ambush against the Turkish army ... on the border," Doldar Hammo, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels which have bases in northern Iraq, told Agence France Presse.

Turkey did not give the Syrian regime a grace period to carry on with its military operations, which must be stopped “immediately,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stressed Monday.

“Military operations in Syria have not stopped since Thursday evening,” Davutoglu said, describing the military assaults as “a blatant violation of human rights.”

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed during a phone call Thursday on the need for a "transition to democracy" in Syria, the White House said.

Obama's office said he and Erdogan had also agreed on the need for an "immediate halt of all bloodshed and violence against the Syrian people" by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey's ambassador to Damascus visited Syrian's flashpoint protest hub of Hama, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, as Syrian army vehicles left the town.

"Our ambassador went to Hama and said that the tanks, security forces had started to leave Hama. This is highly important to show that our initiatives had positive results," Erdogan said in televised remarks, addressing his party members in Ankara.