A senior U.S. official said Thursday there was some progress made but "no breakthrough" at this week's meeting with North Korea aimed at restarting long-stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was speaking after briefing South Korea about the talks in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday.

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who was abruptly withdrawn this week because of security threats, hopes to return to Damascus before the end of November, the State Department said Wednesday.

"Let me just say he has bought his Thanksgiving turkey for his embassy staff, and he wants very much to have Thanksgiving dinner for his folks there. So that's our expectation, it will be sometime before Thanksgiving," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday warned Iran that it should not meddle in Iraq when American forces leave the country at the end of this year.

The Pentagon chief said that even after the last of the 39,000 combat troops are out of Iraq, the U.S. will maintain a significant presence in the Middle East.

A visiting U.S. State Department official on Tuesday underscored “the need for Lebanon to meet all of its international obligations,” the U.S. embassy in Lebanon said.

“Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jake Walles, visited Lebanon and met with senior officials to discuss the political, security, and economic situation in Lebanon, as well as the current situation in Syria,” the embassy said in a statement.

North Korean and U.S. negotiators met on Monday for direct talks aimed at reviving long-stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations.

The U.S. team led by outgoing special representative Stephen Bosworth, as well as his replacement Glyn Davies arrived shortly before 8.30am (06:30 GMT) at the U.S. embassy where the meeting was to begin at 10.00am.

Condoleezza Rice says in a new book that she threatened to quit as president George W. Bush's national security advisor when she was cut out of a key decision on military trials for war-on-terror detainees, the New York Times wrote Sunday.

In her book "No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington," which arrives in bookstores next week, Rice describes a White House rife with discord, with repeated clashes between her and Vice President Dick Cheney over what to do about the detainees.

An Iranian-American accused of plotting to get Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington was due in federal court Monday in New York, when he was expected to enter a plea.

Manssour Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports who lived for many years in Texas where he worked as a used car salesman, was arrested last month at New York's John F. Kennedy international airport.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged on Monday the United Nations to declare Lebanon as a neutral country during his visit to the U.S., As Safir newspaper reported.

The patriarch noted that he means by it “the positive neutrality, whereby (Lebanon) isn’t subordinate to any country or regional or international axes.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is looking to build military ties with Indonesia but Washington is watchful that Jakarta honors its commitment to reform its armed forces, accused of rampant rights abuses under Suharto, a U.S. official said Sunday.

In a meeting Sunday with his Indonesian counterpart Purnomo Yusgiantoro on the resort island of Bali, Panetta will discuss regional issues and Washington's growing "military relationship" with Jakarta after a decade-long hiatus, the defense official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama offered condolences to Saudi Arabia on Saturday after the death of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, calling him a "valued friend" who helped cement ties between the allies.

"He was a strong supporter of the deep and enduring partnership between our two countries forged almost seven decades ago," Obama said in a statement, adding that he learned of the crown prince's death with "great regret."