President Michel Suleiman is scheduled to travel Tuesday to Turkey in light of positive signals received by Lebanese officials about the case of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria, the Central News Agency reported on Monday.

Suleiman’s trip may carry “a happy surprise for the Lebanese in general and the abductees’ families in particular, knowing that the visitors of Baabda Palace have recently quoted President Suleiman as saying that he will not visit Turkey except after receiving confirmed information about the possibility of freeing them or setting a date for that,” well-informed sources told the agency.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood began Monday a two-day meeting on the outskirts of Istanbul focusing on ways to support the uprising against the regime in Damascus, a member of the organization said.

"It is the first meeting of the organization after more than 30 years," since many of its members fled Syria following a revolt that was violently suppressed in 1982, Omar Mushaweh, representative of the Muslim Brotherhood within the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group, told Agence France Presse.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil expressed hope on Monday that the cabinet would swiftly approve the appointment of the personnel in the vacant posts in the oil authority.

“We should prepare for the second stage of process by issuing tenders for foreign companies to kick off oil exploration along Lebanese offshores,” Bassil told An Nahar newspaper.

A previously unknown group issued on Monday a statement calling on Syrian refugees to leave Lebanon immediately, media reports said.

The group calling itself al-Rida Forces said that all the Syrians currently on Lebanese territories should leave the country.

Turkey must stop accepting "illegal" transfers of crude oil from the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq or risk damaging bilateral ties, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh warned on Sunday.

His remarks were the latest sign of cooling ties between Ankara and Baghdad, as well as between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region over oil exports.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday branded the massacre of 150 people in a central Syrian village as "attempted genocide" and said the regime was doomed.

"There is nothing more to be said about Syria," he said, speaking of the bloodshed in the village of Treimsa in Hama province, which activists said was bombarded by government forces.

Stone-throwing Kurds who defied a protest ban to demand the release of jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan clashed Saturday with Turkish police, leaving at least 20 people wounded.

Several hundred protesters in multiple groups spread throughout the city of Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey threw stones and swung sticks at police, who scattered them with water cannon and teargas, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel delegated anew a security official to Turkey to address the case of the abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, the Central News Agency reported on Saturday.

According to the news agency, the kidnappers expressed readiness to free six out of the eleven Lebanese pilgrims until investigations with the rest are complete.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil signed on Friday a contract to lease power-generating vessels from Turkey.

The contract was signed between Lebanon and Turkey’s Karadeniz company and the first ship is expected to arrive in Lebanon after 120 days.

Iran's armed forces chief accused Turkey and Jordan of allowing rebel fighters into Syria and urged them to seal off their borders, ISNA news agency reported on Friday.

"It is the duty of Syria's Muslim neighbors to refrain from backing the terrorists," armed forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi was quoted as saying.