A U.S. official says U.S. forces have boarded a Venezuela-linked sanctioned oil tanker in North Atlantic after pursuing it for weeks.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.

Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the "U.S. military is always an option," even as a series of European leaders rejected President Donald Trump's renewed calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland, citing strategic reasons.

Washington and Kyiv teams in Paris were on Wednesday expected to tackle Ukraine talks' "most difficult issues" including territory following a breakthrough in European-led negotiations, Ukraine's leader said.

On Tuesday, European leaders and US envoys announced they had agreed key security guarantees for Kyiv as they sought to present a united front for Ukraine despite raging tensions over Venezuela and President Donald Trump's designs on Greenland.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday ordered security forces not to crack down on economic protests, drawing a distinction between peaceful demonstrators and armed "rioters".

In a video released by the news agency Mehr after a cabinet meeting, Vice President Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah said Pezeshkian had "ordered that no security measures be taken against the demonstrators".

Iran faces a new round of protests challenging the country's theocracy, but it seems like the only thing people there want to talk about is half a world away: Venezuela.

Since the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend, Iranian state media headlines and officials have condemned the operation. In the streets and even in some official conversations, however, there's a growing question over whether a similar mission could target the Islamic Republic's top officials including the supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona

A familiar slogan has echoed through the streets of various Iranian cities in recent days: "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran."

An emboldened U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted that he has other countries in his sights after toppling Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, leaving the world asking: where's next?

Key Ukrainian allies were to huddle with top U.S. envoys in Paris on Tuesday to discuss security guarantees, as they press ahead on U.S.-brokered plans to end the war with Russia.

Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges at a defiant appearance in a New York court Monday, two days after being snatched by U.S. forces in a stunning raid on his home in Caracas.

Widening protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are putting new pressure on its theocracy.

Tehran is still reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has put Iran's rial currency into a free fall, now trading at some 1.4 million to $1.