STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s center-right government will fulfill all requirements under a deal with Turkey to join NATO and will concentrate external relations to its immediate neighborhood while dropping the previous administration’s “feminist foreign policy,” the country’s top diplomat said on Monday.

Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said the new government shares Turkey’s concern about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the US.

DUBAI: Iranian security forces fired tear gas near a girls’ school in Tehran on Monday, according to videos posted on social media, after a dispute between authorities and students over their mobile phones amid ongoing anti-government protests in Iran.
Iran’s Ministry of Education said several students were treated by emergency services for a drop in blood pressure, but denied that security forces had entered the school.

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Monday that Israel would sign an “historic” agreement with Lebanon to demarcate the maritime border between the countries in three days from now.
“On Thursday, we are going to sign a historic agreement with Lebanon,” the Israeli premier told his visiting Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte of the US-brokered deal that appears set to unlock production at Mediterranean gas fields.
Israel and Lebanon, who are technically at war, agreed to terms earlier this month on the deal.

MADRID: A Spanish man who was documenting his ambitious journey by foot from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has not been heard from since crossing into Iran three weeks ago, his family said Monday, stirring fears about his fate in a country convulsed by mass unrest.

BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi has accused Lebanese MPs of trying to lead the country into a presidential vacuum.

Parliament is set to hold its fourth session to elect a new leader on Monday, as President Michel Aoun’s term ends on Oct. 31.

Addressing the Lebanese ruling class in his Sunday sermon, Al-Rahi said: “We have reached the height of political corruption, which is even worse than financial corruption.”