A top aide to U.S. President Barack Obama called Sunday on Yemen's injured President Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a deal transferring power, during a face-to-face meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Saleh, who has ruled Yemen since 1978, received top U.S. counter-terrorism official John Brennan in a hospital in Riyadh where he is recovering after being badly burned in a bomb attack at his presidential palace last month.

New U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived on Sunday on an unannounced visit to Iraq, where Washington is currently negotiating to maintain a military presence beyond 2011, Agence France Presse reported.

Panetta, who flew in from a visit to Afghanistan, was to inform Iraqi leaders they must decide soon whether they want American troops to stay in Iraq beyond the scheduled pullout at the end of the year, a senior official in his delegation said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday issued a decree naming Anas Naim as the new governor of the central city of Hama after firing Ahmed Khaled Abdul Aziz from the post on July 2, a day after huge anti-regime protests labeled the largest ever.

On July 2 some 500,000 people took to the streets, without security forces intervening, activists said, calling it the single largest demonstration of its kind since the pro-democracy movement erupted on March 15.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that the Jewish state recognizes South Sudan and wished the world's newest nation "much success."

"Yesterday, a new state was born, South Sudan. I hereby announce that Israel recognizes the Republic of South Sudan," he said. "We wish it much success."

The Syrian foreign ministry called in the French and U.S. ambassadors on Sunday to deliver a "strong protest" over their visit to the flashpoint central city of Hama last week, state media said.

"The ministry called in the U.S. and French ambassadors to deliver a strong protest against their visit to Hamas without prior authorization... which constitutes a flagrant interference in Syria's domestic affairs," the official SANA news agency said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will visit Iran Sunday to discuss a wave of unrest shaking Middle East countries, a senior Turkish diplomat said.

Davutoglu was to travel to Tehran after completing talks in Saudi Arabia, where he flew Saturday evening, the diplomat, who accompanied the minister on the trip, told AFP by telephone.

Syria opened a "national dialogue" on Sunday that it hailed as a step towards multi-party democracy after five decades of Baath party rule, but its credibility was undermined by an opposition boycott.

Some 200 delegates, including independent MPs and members of the Baath party, in power since 1963, observed a minute's silence in memory of the "martyrs" before the playing of the national anthem.

Some 120 foreign activists were being held in Israeli jails Saturday, awaiting possible deportation, after arriving at Tel Aviv's airport over the weekend as part of a solidarity mission with the Palestinians, a government official said.

Others who managed to get through Israeli border controls traveled to the West Bank where some joined a demonstration against Israel's separation barrier.

A Yemeni army officer and two of his troops were killed in an ambush by gunmen near the southern port city of Aden on Saturday, military sources said.

They said the unidentified assailants opened fire with automatic weapons on a jeep in the village of Thalaet, west of Daleh, killing Lotf al-Mazlum and two soldiers as well as wounding two civilians, witnesses said.

Iran said it fired two medium range missiles into the Indian Ocean six months ago under the eyes of "American spy planes," local media reported on Saturday, quoting a top military commander.

"In Bahman (Iranian month which runs from January 21 to February 19, two Revolutionary Guard missiles with the range of 1,900 kilometers were fired from Semnan (central Iran) to the designated targets in the Indian Ocean," said the unit's aerospace chief, Amir Ali Hajizadeh said.