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Turkey Resumes Flights to Kurdistan’s Sulaymaniyah Airport

Turkey resumes flights to Sulaymaniyah International Airport. (AP)
Turkey resumes flights to Sulaymaniyah International Airport. (AP)
    Erbil, Baghdad – Ihsan Aziz and Asharq Al-Awsat
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Turkey Resumes Flights to Kurdistan’s Sulaymaniyah Airport

Turkey resumes flights to Sulaymaniyah International Airport. (AP)
Turkey resumes flights to Sulaymaniyah International Airport. (AP)

After a halt of 15 months, Turkish airlines resumed direct flights to the Sulaymaniyah International Airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

A Turkish Airlines flight landed in the airport at dawn local time with 28 passengers on board.

Flights to the facility were suspended in September 2017 four days after a Kurdish independence referendum that was opposed by Ankara and Baghdad.

The vote ultimately failed in achieving its goals due to regional and international meddling.

Director of the Sulaymaniyah airport Taher Abdullah welcome the resumption of Turkish flights.

“It is really a happy day to see a return of Turkish flights,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat, crediting Iraqi President Barham Salih for persuading Ankara to resume operations to the Kurdish region.

The Iraqi leader had paid a visit to Turkey earlier this month.

Public relations official at Sulaymaniyah airport Dana Mohammed revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the facility will receive seven Turkish Airlines flights per week at a rate of one per day.

European carriers are also expected to resume regular flights to the airport starting next week, he added.

Fly Germany will make its first flight to Sulaymaniyah on February 21.

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60 Killed, 168 Wounded over Past 24 Hours in Lebanon, Health Ministry Says

A man works at the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024. (Reuters)
A man works at the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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60 Killed, 168 Wounded over Past 24 Hours in Lebanon, Health Ministry Says

A man works at the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024. (Reuters)
A man works at the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024. (Reuters)

Lebanon’s crisis response unit announced Friday that 60 people were killed and 168 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,229 killed and 10,380 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The casualty toll was notably higher than previous days, with 22 people killed and 117 wounded in two Israeli strikes on two locations in central Beirut. The strike caused the collapse of two residential buildings housing families and displaced individuals.

The crisis response unit report also recorded 57 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

Some 1,032 centers — including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities and other institutions — are sheltering 187,000 people, including 39,000 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report said. Among these shelters, 837 have now reached full capacity.

Despite a major border crossing between Lebanon and Syria being out of commission after an Israeli strike hit the road last week, crowds have continued to flow across the border seeking relative safety in Syria. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 9, Lebanese General Security recorded 317,457 Syrian citizens and 115,044 Lebanese citizens crossing into Syria, the report said.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s fourth repatriation plane left Beirut for Brazil on Friday, carrying 211 passengers including 12 infants, according to a statement from Brazil’s foreign ministry. The flight is set to land in Sao Paulo on Saturday morning local time after a stop to refuel in Lisbon.

The Brazilian government has evacuated 885 people and 11 pets from Lebanon in one week, the foreign ministry said.

About 21,000 Brazilians live in Lebanon, which is home to the largest community of Brazilians in the Middle East. Two Brazilian adolescents have been killed by Israeli bombardments in Lebanon.

The Brazilian Embassy in Beirut remains in contact with Brazilians and their close family members to organize a new repatriation flight depending on the security conditions, according to the foreign ministry.