Financial Times

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Protesters angry over a building collapse in southwestern Iran that killed at least 33 people shouted down an emissary sent by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparking a crackdown in which riot police clubbed demonstrators and fired tear gas, according to online videos analyzed on Monday. The demonstration directly challenged the Iranian government's response to the disaster a week ago as pressure rises in the Islamic Republic over rising food prices and other economic woes amid the unravelling of its nuclear deal with world powers. While the protests so far still appear to be leaderless, even Arab tribes in the region seemed to join them Sunday, raising the risk of the unrest intensifying. Already, tensions between Tehran and the West have spiked after Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Friday seized two Greek oil tankers seized at sea. Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari AleKasir tried to address upset mourners near the site of the 10-story...

ISTANBUL -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discussed Ankara’s planned military operation in northern Syria and the war in Ukraine with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Erdogan’s office said Monday. In recent days Erdogan has said Turkey will launch a cross-border incursion against Kurdish militants in Syria to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) deep buffer zone. He told Putin in a phone call that the frontier zone was agreed in 2019 but had not been implemented, the Turkish presidency said. Ankara carried out an operation against the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in October 2019. Russia, the Syrian regime and the United States also have troops in the border region. Turkey consider the YPG to be a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people. However, the YPG forms the backbone of U.S.-led forces in the fight against the Islamic State group in S...