A breakthrough Israel-Turkey deal following six years of acrimony will see Israel pay $20 million (18.14 million euros) in compensation for a deadly 2010 commando raid, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Monday.

The deal will also see the two countries exchange ambassadors "as soon as possible", Yildirim told a press conference in Ankara.

The EU will open new membership talks with Turkey as planned in a few days, EU diplomatic sources said Wednesday, just as Ankara's accession becomes a hot-button issue in Britain's vote on its future in the bloc.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost a German court battle against a top media boss Tuesday when his appeal in a bitter row over free speech was thrown out.

At least nine people were wounded, three of them critically, when a car bomb exploded on Monday in a town in eastern Turkey, security sources said.

Turkish police on Thursday fired rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Istanbul to protest against threats made to the head of the main opposition party.

Outlawed Kurdish rebels on Thursday claimed a suicide car bombing at a police station in southeastern Turkey that killed six people including a pregnant policewoman.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday hinted in televised remarks that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was behind a bomb attack in central Istanbul that left 11 people dead.

For the PKK to target major cities such as Istanbul "is nothing new", Erdogan said after visiting the injured at an Istanbul hospital.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's office hit back Monday at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a blistering row over a German parliamentary vote declaring the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against Armenians.

Erdogan has angrily condemned last week's vote on the World War I massacres, charging that the 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed it supported "terrorism" by the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), and demanding Sunday that they undergo "blood tests" to see "what kind of Turks they are".

Turkey Thursday recalled its envoy to Germany and threatened consequences, in a furious reaction over the Bundestag's decision to adopt a resolution recognizing the World War I massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide.

An Israeli minister close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that nearly all outstanding issues for a reconciliation agreement with Turkey had been finalized by both sides.