Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis stressed on Friday that her country will not modify its agreement with Israel over the Exclusive Economic Zone, which Beirut and Tel Aviv are bickering over.

“We have already signed a deal with Israel, we would be very happy if Lebanon and Israel agreed on the matter, which would facilitate implementing our deal with Israel,” Kozakou-Marcoullis told As Safir newspaper.

Hundreds of activists in a "Freedom Convoy" who tried to enter Syria from Turkey were stopped near the border on Thursday, as the uprising against the Damascus regime entered its second year.

Turkish police stopped hundreds of mostly Syrian activists as they approached a border crossing outside the city of Kilis, but they escorted a small delegation of organizers in two cars to the post.

Around 1,000 Syrian refugees, including a defecting general, crossed into Turkey in the last 24 hours, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the Syrian revolt.

"The number of Syrian refugees currently staying in Turkey boomed by 1,000 in a single day and climbed to 14,700 total," ministry spokesperson Selçuk Unal told reporters in Ankara.

Two Turkish journalists from an Istanbul-based newspaper have disappeared in neighboring Syria, the paper said Wednesday, asking Damascus and Ankara for help to find them.

The newspaper Milat said in a brief statement that it had not had contact with journalist Adem Ozkose and cameraman Hamit Coskun for five days.

CIA chief David Petraeus met Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for closed-door talks focusing on the crisis across the border in Syria.

Petraeus, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, also discussed the latest developments in neighboring Iran and efforts to counter Kurdish rebels attacking Turkey from safe havens in northern Iraq, said NTV television channel.

Syria has planted landmines near its borders with Lebanon and Turkey, along routes used by refugees fleeing the strife-torn country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged on Tuesday.

"The Syrian regime is trying to prevent people from going in and from fleeing the country," said Nadim Houry, deputy director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division.

Opposition party lawmakers on Saturday staged a protest in southeastern Turkey against a planned NATO early warning radar system, media reported.

Ten deputies from the Republican People's Party (CHP) wearing jackets reading "No to Missile Shield", climbed the mountain where the radar system would be stationed near the town of Malatya, said the state-run Anatolia news agency.

Four generals who had defected from the Syrian army arrived in Turkey Friday, Anatolia news agency reported, citing local Turkish sources.

The four were among some 10 high-ranking army officers stationed in cities including Damascus, Homs and Latakia, who crossed the border into Turkey's southern province of Hatay to join the Syrian rebels, the state-run Turkish agency said.

U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan is to visit Syrian refugee camps in Turkey after travelling to Syria over the weekend, a diplomat told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"Kofi Annan has expressed his wish to come soon to Turkey and we gave our consent," the diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.

The leader of Syria's main opposition group rejected calls Friday by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with President Bashar Assad's government, saying they were pointless and unrealistic as the regime massacres its own people.

As the prospects for diplomacy faltered, Turkey's state-run television TRT said two Syrian generals and a colonel defected to Turkey on Thursday.