Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Monday rejected accusations by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Iran had armed insurgents in neighboring Iraq.

"The United States is not in a good position in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are doing everything they can to maintain their military presence in these two countries," the state television website quoted him as saying.

Visiting Greek President Karolos Papoulias met on Monday with Israeli leaders, as long-frosty relations between the two Mediterranean nations reach new heights of cooperation.

Papoulias' three-day trip, which will also take him briefly to the Palestinian territories, comes a week after Athens effectively prevented a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists from reaching Gaza and breaching Israel's naval blockade of strip.

The United States summoned Syria's charge d'affaires on Monday, accusing Damascus of failing to meet its international obligations after angry mobs besieged the U.S. and French embassies.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland described those storming the U.S. embassy -- for the second time in three days -- as "thugs" and said they had been "chased off" by U.S. Marines.

Protests were staged overnight in several towns in Syria against the opening on Sunday of a "national dialogue" hailed by the regime but boycotted by the opposition, rights activists said.

Some 5,000 people demonstrated in Deir Ezzor in the east of the country, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, adding there were also protests in three districts of the capital Damascus.

France has made indirect contact with Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's regime, the foreign ministry said Monday, denying reports that Paris has begun direct negotiations with Tripoli.

Paris is a leading member of the NATO-led international coalition bombing Gadhafi's forces and a cheerleader for the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) battling to overthrow his rule.

Angry mobs stormed the American and French embassies in Syria on Monday, after the two Western envoys visited the city of Hama, a flashpoint for protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The foreign ministry in Paris said three French staff were wounded in the embassy attack, while a U.S. official said "no staff were injured."

Three rockets slammed into Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone on Monday, wounding a woman and her children, officials said, as U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta began the second day of a visit to press Iraqi leaders on security.

The rockets wounded the woman and her three children, a security official said, but there was no report or indication the missiles had landed anywhere close to the U.S. Embassy inside the zone.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey fell to around 8,500 as hundreds decided to return home over the weekend, Turkish officials said Monday.

Some 238 Syrians went back to their country over the last two days, lowering the total number of refugees in Turkey to 8,579, the country's disaster and emergency management agency said on its website.

Tripoli is negotiating a way out of the Libyan crisis with France not with its rebel foes, the son of embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said in an interview published Monday.

"We are in fact holding real negotiations with France and not with the rebels," Seif Al-Islam said during the interview with the Algerian daily el-Khabar conducted in the Libyan capital.

Israel's parliament was poised on Monday to vote on a law that would effectively ban Israelis from calling for boycotts of any part of the Jewish state or its settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Activists and intellectuals have criticized the controversial bill, accusing the MPs behind it of stifling free speech and compromising Israel's democracy.