SULAIMANIA / BAGHDAD / Reuters A senior Iranian military commander repeatedly warned Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq to withdraw from the oil city of Kirkuk or face an onslaught by Iraqi forces and allied Iranian-backed fighters, Kurdish officials briefed on the meetings said. Major-General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, travelled to Iraq’s Kurdistan region …

Bloomberg Catalan separatists say Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into as he moves to quash their campaign for independence. As the government in Madrid prepares to deploy its most powerful legal weapons, three leading members of the movement in Barcelona said Rajoy isn’t equipped to achieve his goals and risks a damaging entanglement in …

Bloomberg Austria’s president called on Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year-old likely to be the country’s next leader, to form a government committed to the European Union and human rights as he considers the nationalist Freedom Party as a potential partner. As President Alexander Van der Bellen mandated Kurz and his People’s Party to begin coalition talks, his comments hinted at the …