Libya's internationally recognized government attacked a Turkish-owned cargo vessel from ground and air, killing a seaman, after it entered territorial waters "without permission", a lawmaker said Monday.

"The air force called on it several times to turn back but it failed to comply," said the member of the recognized parliament based in the eastern port city of Tobruk.

Overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey's top religious authority Diyanet said it has published thousands of copies of the Koran translated into Armenian for the first time, as it seeks to reach out to minority communities.

Yuksel Salman, director of Diyanet's religious publications office, denied the publication of the Muslim holy book in Armenian has any link to the 100th anniversary last month of mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday rallied thousands of supporters in Germany, weeks before his Islamic-rooted party will contest June parliamentary elections.

"The ballot box is your weapon," Erdogan told the crowd of over 14,000, who waved Turkish flags and shouted "We love you Erdogan, we are proud of you!" national news agency DPA reported.

Turkey's top military commander has taken a 15-day medical leave after a minor operation, local media reported on Sunday.

Army chief of staff Necdet Ozel will be temporarily replaced by Turkish land force commander Hulusi Akar, according to the Hurriyet newspaper, citing military sources.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu slipped across the border into Syria on Sunday to visit a historic tomb that was relocated earlier this year away from jihadi-controlled territory.

Davutoglu, accompanied by his defense minister and army commanders, made the surprise visit to the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman empire's founder Osman I, his office announced.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has rejected claims that Ankara is preparing to intervene militarily in neighboring Syria, local media reported on Saturday.

"No, there is no situation right now that requires Turkey's involvement," Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet newspaper. 

Turkey on Friday denied it had struck a secret new pact with Saudi Arabia to back Islamist rebels in Syria in a drive to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Reports have suggested that Riyadh and Ankara agreed a special pact to militarily and financially support Islamist rebels in Syria in an all-out effort to oust Assad from power. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has controversially turned religion into a campaign issue in the officially secular country's upcoming polls, which promise to be the biggest election challenge yet for the ruling party.

In an unprecedented gesture by a Turkish politician in recent times, Erdogan waved a copy of the Muslim holy book the Koran translated into Kurdish during a rally this week in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

Turkey on Thursday recalled its envoy to Luxembourg to Ankara for consultations after the parliament in the EU member state recognized the mass killings of Armenians in World War I as genocide.

The recall of the envoy is the latest such move by Ankara after it withdrew its ambassadors to the Vatican and Austria over the controversy last month.

The controversial demolition of a former Armenian orphanage in Istanbul has been halted after a public outcry and protests from activists, reports said Thursday.

Bulldozers on Wednesday started to raze Kamp Armen, a former summer camp in Istanbul's Tuzla district, in order to build a luxury apartment complex.