NATO on Thursday overcame sharp differences between long-time rivals Greece and Turkey to finalize an unprecedented mission to tackle migrant smugglers in the Aegean Sea.

U.S.-led NATO launched the operation two weeks ago, aiming to help the EU cope with its worst migrant crisis since World War II, but longstanding disputes between Athens and Ankara over Aegean airspace and territorial waters held up agreement on the operational details.

Police on Wednesday used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a protest against an almost three-month military operation and curfew in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey.

The firing of tear gas canisters filled the air with smoke at the protest in Diyarbakir, whose central Sur district has been under curfew since December 2, an AFP photographer said.

EU leaders will hold a special summit with Turkey in Brussels on March 7 to push forward a deal aimed at stemming the flow of migrants into Europe, the bloc's President Donald Tusk said Wednesday.

Tusk -- who had announced at an EU summit last week that he was planning a meeting with Turkish officials -- said the so-called joint action plan with Turkey "remains a priority, and we must do our utmost for it to succeed."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said Syrian Kurdish militia forces must remain outside the scope of a ceasefire agreed between Syria's warring parties, in a blow to the deal days before it is due to be enforced.

Lashing out at Western policy in Syria, he said the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia were a "terror group" just like Islamic State (IS) jihadists and the Al-Qaida affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

Turkish security forces on Tuesday detained 10 people in a raid on a religious condolence gathering for the suicide bomber who killed 29 in last week's attack on a military bus convoy in Ankara.

Those detained were attending a traditional condolence gathering for the dead bomber inside a mosque in the Ipekyolu district of the eastern mainly-Kurdish city of Van, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkey insisted on Tuesday there was an indisputable link between Syrian Kurdish fighters and last week's deadly attack in Ankara, amid growing confusion over the identity of the bomber.

After the February 18 suicide car bomb attack on a convoy of military buses in the capital that left 29 people dead, Turkish officials insisted the bomber was a Syrian Kurd working on behalf of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

A Turkish truck driver has lodged a legal complaint against his own wife for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pro-government media reported on Monday.

Ali D., 40, who married G.D. three years ago, warned his wife repeatedly not to curse at the president when he appeared on television, Yeni Safak newspaper reported on its website.

A senior Turkish minister lashed out Monday at a European Parliament envoy after she accused security forces of rights violations in the violence-ravaged Kurdish-majority southeast.

Kati Piri, the European Parliament's Rapporteur for Turkey, has "lost her neutrality about Turkey's issues," the country's EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir said in a statement.

Three journalists working for Turkish state-run news agency Anatolia were kidnapped and released on Sunday by members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey, the agency said.

The three -- a local correspondent, a cameraman and a photographer -- were released uninjured to members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (HDP) in the same area where they were taken, the agency reported. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended his country's fight against Kurdish fighters in Syria as "legitimate defense", after international powers urged Ankara to rein in its cross-border bombardments.

Turkey has been shelling targets in northern Syria for the past week in a bid to stem the advances of a Kurdish-led coalition that has seized territory in the area.