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Turkey has no preconditions for dialogue with Syria but any talks should focus on security on their border, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday, in a further softening of Ankara's stance towards Damascus after a decade of hostility.

Turkey has backed rebels fighting to topple Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, and cut diplomatic relations with Damascus early in the 11-year conflict.

But the two countries' intelligence chiefs have maintained contact and recent comments from President Tayyip Erdogan's government suggest a move towards political engagement, alarming Assad's opponents in the remaining pocket of rebel-held Syria.

Cavusoglu said two weeks ago that the Syrian opposition and government must be brought together for reconciliation, and Erdogan said diplomatic relations could never be fully cut.

After visiting Russia, which has strongly backed Assad, Erdogan said President Vladimir Putin had suggested that Turkey cooperate with the Syrian government along their joint border, where Erdogan is planning a further military incursion against Syrian Kurdish fighters he says pose a security threat.

Cavusoglu said two weeks ago that the Syrian opposition and government must be brought together for reconciliation, and Erdogan said diplomatic relations could never be fully cut.

After visiting Russia, which has strongly backed Assad, Erdogan said President Vladimir Putin had suggested that Turkey cooperate with the Syrian government along their joint border, where Erdogan is planning a further military incursion against Syrian Kurdish fighters he says pose a security threat.

"No conditions for dialogue, but what is the aim, the target? It needs to be goal-oriented," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after talks in Moscow with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad, called for talks involving Turkey and Syria to avert a military operation.

"The main thing is not to allow any new military action, to negotiate through diplomatic channels on the basis of the political principles that previously existed in relations between Syria and Turkey," Lavrov said.

Cavusoglu revealed earlier this month that he briefly spoke with Mekdad last year on the margins of an international gathering, though he played down the meeting.

Asked last week about potential talks with Damascus, Erdogan said that diplomacy can never be fully severed. There is a "need to take further steps with Syria," he said, according to a transcript of his comments to Turkish media.

Around 3,000 people demonstrated on Aug. 12 in the town of Azaz, which is controlled by Turkey-backed rebel forces, pledging to continue their opposition to Assad.

Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's ruling AK Party, said a political solution could only be reached when Syria's government changes course and the opposition believes that a basis for reconciliation has emerged.

"Of course it is out of the question to talk about any political dialogue until the conditions that led to the severance of the political relationship (between Turkey and Syria) are eliminated," Celik said. (Reuters)

As Ukraine prepared to mark both its independence from Soviet-rule in 1991 and the six months since Russian troops invaded, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged that any Russian attacks in or around the date would provoke a powerful response.

Zelenskiy, who has led his country's resistance since Russian troops poured over the border on Feb. 24, also said Ukraine would restore its rule over the Crimea region - annexed by Russia in 2014 in a precursor to this year's invasion.

Despite his defiance, there was concern among Ukrainian and allied Western officials that Russia was preparing to attack the capital Kyiv once again.

The United States said it believed Russia would target civilian and government infrastructure in the next few days. U.S. citizens should leave Ukraine "now" by their own means if it was safe to do so, the U.S. Embassy said.

On the battlefields, Russian forces carried out artillery and rocket strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine, where fighting has taken place near Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine's military said. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for strikes on the plant.

Meanwhile leaders of dozens of countries and international organisations were taking part in the so-called Crimea Platform - most of them by video - in solidarity with Ukraine on the six-month anniversary of the invasion.

Opening the forum, Zelenskiy, dressed in his customary military gear, told delegates: "To overcome terror, it is necessary to gain victory in the fight against Russian aggression."

"It is necessary to liberate Crimea. This will be the resuscitation of world law and order," he said.

Italy's acting Prime Minister Mario Draghi told the summit Rome would continue to support Ukraine. "We are with you in your fight to resist Russia's invasion, restore Ukraine's territorial integrity, protect your democracy and independence," he said.

Earlier, Zelenskiy had warned that Moscow might try "something particularly ugly" in the run-up to Wednesday's Independence Day. Asked at a news conference with visiting Polish President Andrzej Duda about the possibility of a Russian missile strike on Kyiv, Zelenskiy said there was a daily threat of attacks although the number of them could increase.

Ukraine's response would be the same for any city that comes under attack from Russia, he said.

"They will receive a response, a powerful response," Zelenskiy said. "I want to say that each day ... this response will grow, it will get stronger and stronger."

Fears of intensified Russian attacks followed the killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ultra-nationalist, in a car bombing near Moscow on Saturday. Moscow blamed the killing on Ukrainian agents, a charge Kyiv denies.

Kyiv has only rarely been hit by Russian missiles since Ukraine repelled a ground offensive to seize the capital in March.

The mood in Kyiv was calm on Tuesday, with many people still walking the streets, but signs of increased threat could be felt. An adviser to Zelenskiy told the BBC many civilians were trying to leave Kyiv for fear of a sudden Russian attack.

Authorities told Ukrainians to work from home where possible from Tuesday to Thursday, also urging people to take air raid warnings seriously and seek shelter when sirens sound.

The Kyiv city administration banned large public gatherings until Thursday, fearing that a crowd of celebrating residents could become a target for a Russian missile strike.

STALEMATE

Russia sent its troops over the border in what it calls a "special military operation" saying it wanted to demilitarise its neighbour and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Moscow of waging an unjustified, imperial-style war of aggression.

Six months on from the Russian invasion, which has caused thousands of deaths, forced over a third of Ukraine's 41 million people from their homes and destroyed whole cities, the conflict is largely locked in a stalemate.

Russian forces control a large swathe of the south, including along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts, and chunks of the eastern Donbas region. The prospects for peace look almost non-existent.

“We feel good, trusting that victory will be on our side, only ours, there is no other option,” Yevhen, a Ukrainian soldier, said as his frontline unit fired off several howitzer shells towards Russian positions from a field in the Donbas.

Russian shelling hit Kharkiv in the northeast - Ukraine's second largest city - around dawn on Tuesday, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. A house was hit but no one hurt, he said.

In the south, Ukraine's southern military command said Russian forces pressed attacks along front lines of areas they occupy, including multiple rocket strikes on the town of Marhanets across the Dnipro River from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Two civilians were hurt and several homes, gas and water pipelines were damaged, it said.

It added that Ukrainian rockets and artillery had destroyed an ammunition depot and command post of a Russian airborne assault regiment in Chernobaevka in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, southwest of Zaporizhzhia.

Artillery and rocket fire near the nuclear reactor complex, has stirred international calls for the area to be demilitarised. (Reuters)

Pakistan's former premier Imran Khan, who was facing charges on Sunday under an anti-terror act for threats to police and a magistrate, accused the government of temporarily blocking YouTube to deny live access to his speech at a political rally.

Khan has been making fiery speeches to gatherings across the South Asian nation as he pushes for new elections after being ousted from power in April through a parliamentary vote.

The Youtube blocking accusation followed a ban on Saturday by the electronic media regulator on the live broadcast of Khan's speeches, citing what it called his "hate speech" against state institutions.

"Imported government blocked YouTube midway through my speech," Khan said on Twitter.

A spokesman for internet regulator the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not immediately reach Khan to seek comment.

'PROVOCATIVE STATEMENTS'

Khan's speeches were "prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and likely to disturb public peace and tranquility", the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) said in a statement on Saturday.

It accused Khan of "continuously ... levelling baseless allegations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions".

It prohibited live broadcasts of his speeches by news channels, with immediate effect, but made an exception for recorded speech.

Pakistan's government, police and its powerful army have been among the targets of Khan's remarks.

Soon after Saturday's television ban, Khan's party vowed to go live on "500+ YouTube and Facebook channels".

However, many Pakistani users of social media reported problems in accessing YouTube on Sunday, just as Khan was about to address a gathering in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

In those comments, Khan said he was being censored for not accepting the current coalition government, which had voted him out of power.

The television ban came a day after Khan's threats to Islamabad's police chief and a female judge over what he called the arrest and alleged torture of a close aide who faces sedition charges for urging the military's lower ranks to defy the orders of the superiors.  (Reuters)

South Korea and the United States began their largest joint military drills in years on Monday with a resumption of field training, officials said, as the allies seek to tighten readiness over North Korea's potential weapons tests.

The annual summertime exercises, renamed Ulchi Freedom Shield this year and scheduled to end on Sept. 1, came after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, vowed to "normalise" the combined exercises and boost deterrence against the North.

South Korea separately launched the four-day Ulchi civil defence drills on Monday, designed to boost government readiness, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic emerged.

The military and civil exercises are aimed at improving the country's preparedness to match the changing patterns of war, with evolving cyber threats against key facilities such as chip factories and supply chains, Yoon said.

"Maintaining peace on the Korean peninsula is built on our airtight security posture," Yoon told a cabinet meeting, calling for thorough exercises based on real-world scenarios.

The drills were the largest since 2017 after being scaled back because of COVID-19 and as Yoon's predecessor sought to restart talks with Pyongyang, which has called the exercises a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea fired two cruise missiles from the west coast last week, after South Korea and the United States kicked off preliminary training for the exercises.

North Korea has conducted missile tests at an unprecedented pace this year and is ready to conduct its seventh nuclear test at any time, Seoul officials said.

Yoon has said his government is willing to provide economic aid if Pyongyang takes steps toward denuclearisation, but North Korea has rebuffed his offer, openly criticising him. 

Seoul's defence ministry has said the allies would stage 11 field training programmes, including one at brigade-level - involving thousands of soldiers - this summer.

To better counter North Korea's growing missile threats targeting the South's capital, the ministry said it would improve missile detection capabilities and push for an early deployment of a new interceptor system.

The United States, South Korea and Japan participated in a recent ballistic missile defence exercise off Hawaii's coast, the first such drills since 2017, when relations between Seoul and Tokyo hit their lowest point in years. (Reuters)