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The newly established Kurdistan Airlines has
recently opened a direct flight route between
Frankfurt and Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital Arbil. There
are also plans in the near future for direct flights
to Arbil from Stockholm, London and Amsterdam.
It would improve travel conditions for 40 000 to 50
000 people in Sweden who have family ties with Iraqi
Kurdistan. They no longer have to travel the land
route via Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey when they
visit family in northern Iraq. According to the
Kurdistan Regional Government’s Nordic
representative Taha Barwary, not only those with
roots in Iraqi Kurdistan will benefit from the new
flights from Europe, but also Iraqis from other
parts of Iraq.
- This means that the isolation of Iraqi Kurdistan
is broken. In the future we no longer have to travel
through countries that have on countless occasions
harassed Kurdish travellers. It will also promote
and facilitate trade and investment in the region.
Since the invasion of Iraq there have been minor
international flights to Arbil via Amman and Bagdad,
by AirServ, a route mostly used by UN staff, aid
workers and journalists. Recently a Kurdish Airways
flight connection has also been set up from Dubai to
Arbil (this Arabic name can also be rephrased Irbil
or Erbil - however in Kurdish the city is called
Hawler).
Meanwhile, Iraqi Airways announced its plans to
launch a series of flight routes from Arbil, to a
series of destinations including Istanbul (as it is
unthinkable for Kurdish Airlines to receive a
landing permit in Turkey). Passengers who land in
Arbil will from now on have their passes stamped
with ‘Iraqi Republic, Iraqi Kurdistan Region’.
The same goes for passengers travelling to Iraqi
Kurdistan via the Turkish-Iraqi border. The name
‘Kurdistan’ causes blood to boil in Turkey. When I
travelled to northern Iraq through Turkey last
summer, the Iraqi-Kurdish border authorities did not
stamp my passport at all – so as to save me from
trouble on the way back through Turkey. According to
Kurdish sources in the region, the self-governing
Iraqi Kurdistan is increasingly recognised as a
political reality, even in Turkey.
The development of Iraq into a country with strong
regions and a weak central authority since the fall
of Saddam’s regime is an inescapable fact – one that
is leading to a great deal of bloodshed.
When the Iraqis vote on October 15 on the new draft
constitution they will decide on a proposal which
not only allows for Iraqi Kurdistan to maintain its
autonomous region in the north, but also for the
Shia in the south to form its own regions. The state
of Iraq – its borders drawn up by the British
colonial powers after the First World War – is now
on a downhill path. The creation of Kurdish Airlines
strengthens Iraqi Kurdistan’s position as a
self-ruling region where the central authorities in
Baghdad, as stated in the draft constitution, have
very limited powers.
Footnote: Summer of 2003 Scandinavian Airlines and
Polish LOT were given permission, as the only
non-Arabic flight company, to set up flight
connections with the city of Basra in southern Iraq.
Flights between Copenhagen and Basra were expected
to fly twice a week, however, due to security
reasons the plans were never realised.
Link to the article on Swedish:
http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/utrikes/did_10698055.asp
www.krg.org
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