SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region — Flights between Sulaimani in the Kurdistan Region and Turkey have resumed on Saturday.
"Of course we are happy with this. We also thank those who have tried to reopen the Sulaimani airport. Sulaimani, including both its tourists and businessmen, have for 18 months faced much difficulty," one traveler told reporters.
Turkish Airlines plane departed landed in Sulaimani at 3:15 a.m., according to the airline's website.
Then, Turkish Airlines Flight 807 took off from Sulaymaniyah International Airport at 4:10 a.m. and landed at Istanbul Ataturk Airport at 7 a.m.
It is the first commercial air travel between Sulaimani and Turkey since the latter imposed a flight ban after the Kurdistan Region's independence referendum on September 30, 2017.
The first commercial flight since a ban was lifted between Turkey and Sulaimani lands on January 26, 2019. Video: Sulaymaniyah International Airport FB
Other airlines did not immediately announce the resumption of flights.
Tahir Abdullah, the director of the Sulaimani airport, told reporters that the last ditch effort by Iraqi President Barham Salih resolved the issue.
"The importance of the airport is that it is not only a card in the hands of the central government, but also in the countries surrounding the Kurdistan Region. The people have to see the importance of airports and respect its internal instructions," Abdullah said.
Officials in Kurdistan and Iraq need to find a balance for the different political equations so such a closure never reoccurs.
"We hope this doesn't happen again, and for no airport in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq face this issue," Abdullah added.
There are no guarantees for such thing not to happen again, he added, but the civil aviation law is a global law. "Civilian aviation is to allow nations to be closer to each other, not to create more enmity," he added.
For airlines to start trickling into the airport again, time is needed, he added, saying reorganizing flights requires time.
He revealed that Germania airline will also start flights after February 10.
Sulaimani is the largest province in the Kurdistan Region by area and population. It takes at least 2 hours, 30 minutes to drive between Sulaimani and Erbil on dangerous roads which wind through the mountains.
Turkey opened its airspace to flights to and from Erbil International Airport in March 2018, but refused to open it with Sulaimani alleging the presence of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) elements in the province.
Authorities in the province have taken a firmer anti-PKK stance to appease Turkey recently.
Update: 11:38 a.m.
