The leader of Turkey's main opposition party on Sunday accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of seeking to stage a "civilian coup" over plans for snap elections after coalition talks failed. 

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its overall majority in June 7 legislative polls but was unable to form a coalition by the deadline that runs out Sunday.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on Sunday killed a Turkish soldier in an attack in eastern Turkey as it held a dozen customs officials hostage, the army said.

Eleven customs officials and their driver have been missing for two days after vanishing in the Van region of eastern Turkey on the border with Iran.

A soldier was killed in southeastern Turkey and a regional headquarters of the country's ruling party hit by a bomb attack, in new violence blamed on Kurdish militants, the army and sources said Saturday.

The soldier, a captain, was killed in a rocket and long-range gun attack late Friday on a military post in Beytussebap district in southeastern Sirnak province, the army said in a statement.

Turkey on Friday accused the BBC of making propaganda for the "terrorist" Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) over a report on the outlawed group's female fighters in northern Iraq. 

The BBC responded by saying its report had offered a "unique insight" into the motivations of the PKK's fighters and had also stated clearly that the group is considered a "terrorist organization" by Turkey.

Turkey's government is seeking to extend for one more year a parliamentary mandate that allows the military to combat Islamist jihadists and Kurdish militants in neighboring Syria and Iraq, a foreign ministry official said on Friday.

The current mandate under which the Turkish armed forces launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria expires on October 2, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Lebanese General Security on Friday announced arresting a young man who tried to travel to Turkey to join the extremist Islamic State group, which has seized vast swathes of Syria and Iraq.

“As part of its efforts to monitor the activities of terrorist groups, especially militants who brainwash Lebanese youths into joining and fighting alongside such groups, the General Directorate of General Security arrested Lebanese national O. H.,” it said in a statement.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Friday he would call snap elections likely to be held on November 1, after coalition talks failed in an unprecedented political impasse.

Erdogan, who suffered a rare political setback in inconclusive June polls, said he would meet the parliament speaker on Monday to make the arrangements and then formally call the new elections.

Turkish forces have killed 771 militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey over the last four weeks, the state news agency Anatolia said Friday.

The agency, whose figures could not be confirmed independently, said among those killed were 430 rebels who died in air raids on PKK camps in Iraq.

Turkey should play a full part in the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State group and take better control of its border with Syria, the U.S. defense secretary said Thursday.

Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Turkey had agreed in principle to join the anti-IS coalition but should now add its own warplanes to the "air tasking order," the military structure coordinating strikes.

Iran has expressed its concerns to Turkey's ambassador over a recent spate of attacks on its citizens in the neighboring country, news media reported Thursday.

Nine Iranian trucks and a bus have been attacked or torched in Turkey since late July, Tabnak news agency quoted a transport official as saying Tuesday.