The Pentagon does not see Turkey's recent military buildup along its border with Syria as a precursor to war between the neighboring countries, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday. 

The confirmation of Derek Mitchell caps off the Obama administration's decision to restore full diplomatic relations with the country.

Military leaders in Tehran have begun to outfit Iranian warships patrolling the Straits of Hormuz with short-range missiles, a sign that tensions along the highly-contested waterway could be coming to a head once again. 

A group of defense analysts told the House Armed Services Committee on Friday that the plan to reduce the size of the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) to 230,000 was misguided, urging the Obama administration and NATO to change course.

The analysts, Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution and former Army Vice Chief of Staff retired Gen. Jack Keane, all said that the added cost of maintaining the ANSF force at 350,000 beyond 2014 was worth the expense to keep things from deteriorating once NATO troops are mostly gone.

“I mean, this makes no sense,” Keane said of the reduction, planned to occur by 2016. “How can we expect the ANSF to protect the people with one-third less force only a year after we almost zero-out the U.S.-NATO force of 100,000?

“Why, after all these years of investing, would we gut that force and put the entire security mission at risk?” he said.

The World Trade Organization upheld on Friday most of its earlier ruling against the United States that labeling the origin of meat products gives less favorable treatment to Canada and Mexico. 

The WTO Appellate Body said that U.S. country-of-origin labeling rules, also known as COOL, provides less favorable treatment to Canadian and Mexican cattle and hogs than U.S. livestock because of record-keeping and verification requirements.

The WTO judges upheld the finding that the United States has the right to adopt country of origin labeling requirements and also overturned the finding that COOL is more trade restrictive than necessary and the finding that it fail to fulfill the objective to provide consumer information because the of unclear labeling.  

“We are pleased with today’s ruling, which affirmed the United States’ right to adopt labeling requirements that provide information to American consumers about the meat they buy,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee blasted Friday's decision by the United Nations to accept Bethlehem's bid to gain World Heritage designation for the Church of the Nativity.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) had particularly harsh words for France, the only European country to vote for the resolution. Berman had joined two other Jewish Democrats in a letter Thursday urging Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the current chairman of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee meeting, urging him to reject the Palestinian application.

“We all know that this vote today was not about the Church of the Nativity, as the resolution was opposed by the Church's religious caretakers,” Berman said in a statement. “Rather, this was just another attempt by the Palestinians to make an end run around direct peace negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian strategy of pursuing unilateral UN actions is flawed and dangerous and only moves the parties further away from peace. I'm particularly disappointed with the actions of France, the only European country to vote in favor of this resolution.”

The Defense Department is pressing forward with plans to station a number of V-22 Ospreys at various U.S. bases in the Pacific, despite concerns by Tokyo over recent accidents involving the aircraft. 

A record 74 percent of people in Pakistan consider the United States more of an enemy than a partner.

The State Department's top official for Africa on Friday shot down proposals to reunify the West African country of Mali by force following a rebellion by nomadic Tuaregs and Islamist militants.

The comments by Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson come as several multinational organizations — notably the United Nations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) — are discussing the viability of a peacekeeping mission in Mali. A military coup overthrew the country's government in March, and rebel groups in the north grabbed the opportunity to seize control of the northern part of the country and declare an Islamic breakaway state last month.

“We are coordinating closely with our mission in the United Nations to press the African Union and ECOWAS to define a clear mission for their proposed ECOWAS peacekeeping mission in Mali,” Carson said in written testimony before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa. “That said, we think an ECOWAS mission to militarily retake the north is ill-advised and not feasible.”