ROME, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Emanuele Galeppini, a 16-year-old Italian international golfer who lived in Dubai, was named on Friday as the first of several possible victims from Italy to be identified after a New Year's Eve bar fire in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.

"The Italian Golf Federation mourns the passing of Emanuele Galeppini, a young athlete who carried with him passion and genuine values," the federation said in a statement.

ANKARA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he would have a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday to discuss peace efforts between Ukraine and Russia as well as issues surrounding Gaza.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan also said Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will attend a meeting of the "Coalition of the Willing", a group of nations backing Ukraine, in Paris in coming days.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer )

President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States was "locked and loaded" to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilise the region.

Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated.

Shopkeepers in the capital Tehran went on strike on Sunday over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country.

DUBAI, Jan 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fire on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years.

"We are locked and loaded and ready to go," he said in a social media post. The United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran's atomic programme and military leadership.

Yemen's UAE-backed separatists announced a two-year transition to independence Friday despite reporting 20 deaths in airstrikes from a Saudi-led coalition trying to roll back their weeks-long offensive across the country's south.

A separatist military official and medical sources reported 20 fighters dead in air raids on two military bases as the coalition also targeted an airport and other sites.

Jan 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said that if Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, the United States of America will come to their rescue.

"We are locked and loaded and ready to go," he said in a Truth Social post.

This follows the deaths of several people as Iran's biggest protests in three years over economic hardship turned violent across multiple provinces.

DUBAI, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Yemen said on Friday that Aidarus Al-Zubaidi, the leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), refused landing permission the previous day for a plane carrying a Saudi delegation to Aden.

The halt in flights at Aden international airport was the latest sign of a deepening crisis between Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose rivalry is reshaping war-torn Yemen.

For years, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia projected geopolitical and economic power across the Gulf and beyond, seemingly in tandem.

But a growing rivalry and struggle for influence has come to a head -- most recently in Yemen -- following years of divergence over a tangle of competing interests that reach from regional waterways to the corridors of power in Washington, analysts say.

DUBAI, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Air traffic at Yemen's Aden international airport was halted on Thursday as tensions persisted between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Gulf powers whose rivalry is reshaping war-torn Yemen.

The Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government ordered new restrictions on flights to and from the UAE, aiming to curb escalating tensions in Yemen, a Saudi source told Reuters.

Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday, with six reported killed, the first deaths since the cost-of-living demonstrations broke out.

The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, and have since spread to other parts of the country.

On Thursday, Iran's Fars news agency reported two people killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Lordegan, in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and three in Azna, in neighbouring Lorestan province.