Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and French President Francois Hollande, who held a meeting hours before the G-20 summit talks on the global economy in St. Petersburg started, agreed that President Bashar al-Assad’s recent chemical weapons attack in Damascus suburb should not go unpunished.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that whatever action is required in Syria should be under the UN framework, amid growing pressure on US President Barack Obama from his Russian counterpart and other world leaders not to attack the Arab country.

US President Barack Obama arrived in Russia’s Saint Petersburg for the G20 summit, where officials said he will argue his case for military action against the Syrian regime over an alleged chemical weapons attack.

Turkish Ambassador to Egypt Huseyin Avni Botsali returned to Cairo on Thursday morning after he was recalled by his native country for talks last month.

Thanks to the transport and energy projects jointly implemented by Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the Caspian Sea region will gain a strategic significance in the world, Turkish president Abdullah Gul said at the international forum dedicated to transport and communication held in Istanbul on Thursday.

Turkish army deployed additional troops and weapons along the Syrian border on Wednesday amid fears of a potential military intervention led by the United States. Reinforcements from Turkey’s military command in Gaziantep province

The number of the Syrians forced to leave their native country and seek shelter in refugee camps in Turkey has exceeded 200,000 people. Taking into account the people living outside these camps the figure is over half a million.

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, after meeting his Macedonian counterpart Gjorge Ivanov in Skopje on Wednesday, encouraged both Macedonia and Greece to find mutual solution on the name issue. “The mechanisms in Europe work on consensus. A mutual solution has to be found and we will support whatever Greece

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić received on Thursday the credentials of newly appointed Egyptian Ambassador to Belgrade Menha Mahrous Bakhoum. He used the opportunity to urge the Egypt’s interim government to reconsider the country’s decision to recognize Kosovo.

Turkey’s ambassador is due to return to Egypt on Wednesday after he was recalled last month over the bloody crackdown on supporters of the country’s ousted Islamist president, a foreign ministry diplomat said.