Flights between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah resumed on Monday after a two-and-a-half year ban due to accusations from Ankara of increased militant activity in the province.
Airport spokesman Dana Mohammed told Agence France-Presse that “at 1:50 am [2250 GMT] the first Turkish Airlines flight landed at Sulaimaniyah Airport from Turkey, with 105 passengers on board … before departing for İstanbul with 123 passengers.”
Turkey had announced in April 2023 a ban on flights to and from Sulaimaniyah International Airport over allegations that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had infiltrated the airport and boosted activity in the province.
Mohammed said Monday’s flights marked “the end of the ban” on the airport, adding that “Turkish airspace has been reopened as of today to flights from Europe to the [Sulaimaniyah] airport and vice versa.”
Turkey is the main transit point for flights in and out of the key city in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
The spokesman added that Turkish Airlines would operate four weekly flights to the city, while Turkish budget carrier AJet would begin flights from December.
Days after Ankara announced the ban, Iraq accused Turkey of a drone attack near the airport while a US convoy that included Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was in the area.
Turkey has repeatedly alleged that the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), a key component of the SDF, are linked to the PKK.
The PKK began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq last month.
The group in May formally renounced its decades-long armed campaign against Turkey, which has claimed some 40,000 lives.
© Agence France-Presse