ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi authorities have decided to officially reopen the Duhok-Mosul road to business traffic, taking effect on Wednesday. Kurdish security officials in Erbil say they are ready to unilaterally reopen the KRG capital road to Kirkuk if Baghdad insists on maintaining its blockade. “Today, the Mosul governor decided for the Mosul-Duhok road to be opened for businesses … starting from tomorrow, they could send their goods to Mosul and the vice versa,” Ismat Rajab, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) office in Mosul, now living in Duhok, told Rudaw. It has been almost two months since the Duhok-Mosul road near the town of Wanke was opened to civilians. Rajab said the governor had also vowed to open another road between Bashik and Mardan in the region. Ayad Hassan, head of the Duhok Chamber of Commerce, said the decision to reopen the road to business is very significant. “Mosul is very important for business with Duhok,” he told Rudaw. “Before the war on ISIS, nearly 200 businessmen from Duhok had representation in Mosul.” Nineveh province is the closest to Duhok. The road had been closed off since 2014 after Iraq’s second biggest city fell to ISIS. As part of the effort to normalize businesses relations between the provinces of the Kurdistan Region and those of Iraq, a security official in Erbil said they are ready to open the Erbil-Kirkuk and Erbil-Makhmour roads, which were shut in the wake of the October 16 Iraqi Army incursion. “We are not a factor for the closure of these roads. They were damaged during fighting, especially the Erbil-Kirkuk road near Pirde [Altun Kupri] town and the bridge was blown up,” Tariq Nuri, head of Erbil Asayesh, told Rudaw. He said the Iraqi government should come forward and repair the bridge. “The Iraqi government should take … steps like opening the airports and ending the military status in Makhmour and Pirde,” he said. “When these things are done, the opening of the roads will become easy.” Erbil and Baghdad are in the final stages of negotiations to reopen the Kurdistan Region’s airports to international travel, the Iraqi prime minister said in an interview with a Germany media outlet during the Munich Security Conference. “We are in the last stage of discussions,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Arabic service in an interview published on Sunday. Ali Rasheed, head of the Erbil Provincial Council, said “the closure of the two roads has created a lot of problems for people.” He urged the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to start discussions with Baghdad to see this resolved.
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