US President Donald Trump thanked Iran's leadership on Friday after saying Tehran had called off the executions of hundreds of protesters arrested in a brutal crackdown.

"I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

Trump repeatedly threatened military action against Iran over the past two weeks to help protesters, where rights groups say Iranian forces have killed thousands of people.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree on Friday declaring Kurdish a "national language", in an apparent gesture of good will towards the minority following clashes in recent days.

The decree is the first formal recognition of Kurdish national rights since Syria's independence in 1946.

It stated Kurds were "an essential and integral part" of Syria, where they have suffered decades of marginalisation and oppression under former rulers.

A top UK police chief who oversaw a contentious decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans from a Birmingham match retired on Friday after public pressure for him to step down.

West Midlands Police and its chief constable Craig Guildford, 52, have been under mounting pressure about how they came to the decision to bar the fans from the November 6 UEFA Europa League match with Aston Villa.

The move sparked political outrage in Britain, including from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and in Israel, with Israeli leaders denouncing it as "antisemitic".

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The Trump administration issuedfresh sanctions on Friday further targeting the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and the transfer of oil products, weapons and other so-called dual-use equipment that it said helped fund the group.

The action targets 21 individuals and entities as well as one vessel, including some alleged front companies in Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a statement.

By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 - Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi on Friday urged the international community to ramp up pressure on the Iranian government to help protesters overthrow clerical rule, even as a deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled demonstrations.

Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's toppled shah, held a news conference in Washington D.C. on Friday morning to call for political, economic and military pressure on Tehran.

The son of Iran's late shah said Friday he was confident that mass protests would topple the Islamic republic and urged international action, as US President Donald Trump holds off on intervening in the unrest.

Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the Washington area, has presented himself as leader of the opposition as the cleric-run state ruthlessly represses mass protests.

"The Islamic republic will fall -- not if, but when," Pahlavi told a news conference in Washington.

A bipartisan US Congress delegation began a visit to Copenhagen on Friday to voice support for Denmark and Greenland after US President Donald Trump threatened to take over the Arctic island, an autonomous Danish territory.

The two-day visit comes alongside a European show of support in the form of a military reconnaissance mission to Greenland.

The 11 congressmen and women were to hold talks with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Five pro-Palestinian activists pleaded not guilty on Friday to breaking into a British military air base and damaging two planes in protest against Britain's support for Israel.

The five are accused of breaking into the Brize Norton Royal Air Force base in central England in June and spraying red paint over two Voyager aircraft used for re-fuelling and transport.

Campaign group Palestine Action, which has since been banned by the government, said it was behind the incident.

Jan 16 (Reuters) - Greece plans to extend its territorial waters further, including potentially in the Aegean Sea, Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said on Friday, despite Turkey's long-standing threat of war should Athens take such a step.

The NATO allies, but historic rivals, have eased tensions in recent years but remain at odds over where their continental shelves begin and end in the Aegean - an area believed to hold significant energy potential and with implications for overflights and airspace.

A French prosecutor Friday sought a one-year jail term for an Iranian woman accused of promoting "terrorism" online in a case linked to a possible prisoner swap with two French citizens.

Judgment in the case is expected on February 26.

Mahdieh Esfandiari, a 39-year-old Iranian, was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting and inciting "terrorism" on social media.

The arrest was over comments she is said to have made including some on Palestinian militant group Hamas attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, according to French authorities.