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Iraq's Kurdistan airports anxious about
Baghdad's control over Kurdish airspace
3.7.2012 |
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Tahir Abdullah, director of the Sulaimani
International Airport, Kurdistan region of Iraq. Photo Rudaw.
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Talar Fayiq, director of the Erbil International
Airport, Kurdistan region of Iraq. Photo Rudaw.
July 3, 2012
SULAIMANIYAH,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — The directors of
Kurdistan’s airports have expressed concern that
Baghdad could close the region’s airspace due to
tensions between Kurdish and Iraqi authorities if
current aviation laws are not modified.
Tahir Abdullah, director of the Sulaimani
International Airport, told Rudaw that Baghdad
controls Kurdistan’s airspace and that the Kurdish
government does not have any authority.
He warned that, if relations between Baghdad and
Erbil continue to sour, “Iraqi aviation authorities
might freeze the work of our airports and not allow
any planes to land here.”
Abdullah urged regional authorities and Kurdish MPs
in Baghdad to make an effort to amend the aviation
law “or find another solution so that we do not face
a disaster and won’t be embarrassed further
vis-à-vis companies and tourists.”
Tour agencies and airlines need to receive Baghdad’s
permission to fly to Kurdistan airports, Abdullah
said, and the Iraqi government also imposes
conditions which force them to raise the price of
tickets and services.
Khanda Anwar Muhammad, a sales manager with Azmar
Airline in the Kurdistan Region, says they need to
obtain Baghdad’s permission for every inbound and
outbound flight.
“This is a lengthy process and they do a lot of
investigating,” she said.
“If we only needed permission from the Erbil and
Sulaimani airports, our jobs would be easier.
Sometimes, because of security problems in Baghdad,
our work gets very complicated and difficult.”
Nawroz Abdulqadir, director of the Arbat
Agricultural Airport in Sulaimani province and a
member of the Aviation Engineering Board, says,
“When the Kurdistan Regional Government can provide
its own security on the ground, it’s unreasonable
for them to not also provide air security as well.”
Talar Fayiq, director of the Erbil International
Airport, voiced similar concerns.
“If one day Baghdad closes our skies, what can we
do?” asked Fayiq. “If Baghdad has problems with any
country, they will close our skies to that country
as well, as they did to Turkey a while ago.”
Fayiq said Baghdad has already started to pressure
the Erbil and Sulaimani airports. She called on
Kurdish officials to resolve “this huge problem.”
She added that many international airlines would
like to fly to Erbil and Sulaimani airports “but
Baghdad does not allow them or creates problems for
them.”
Shwan Muhammad, a Kurdish MP in Iraqi Parliament,www.ekurd.net
said there is a bill in the legislature to amend the
current aviation law that has already been rejected
“because it gave no authority to the Kurdistan
Region.”
Muhammad added that the Iraqi constitution only
gives authority to the central government to control
airports as they are considered as border ports.
Hassan Jihad, a Kurdish MP and member of the
Security and Defense Committee in Iraqi Parliament,
said the bill as it is will be rejected again.
“We believe that the bill has to be ratified based
on national consensus and through a
majority/minority mechanism,” said Jihad.
But Abdulqadir said that Kurdistan does not see one
penny of the income made from its skies. She said
Erbil’s airport has an income of around $350 million
per year, but it all goes to Baghdad.
Imad Ahmed, deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG), told Rudaw, “We are
planning to establish a civil aviation agency in
Kurdistan and organize the Erbil and Sulaimani
airports within that.”
KRG’s minister of transportation and communication,
Johnson Siyawash, said the Iraqi government is
trying to politicize civil aviation law the same way
they did oil and gas and other outstanding disputes
between Erbil and Baghdad.
Siyawash believes that when the KRG establishes its
own civil aviation agency “it will get rid of many
of the problems.”
“We will not accept any provision related to Iraqi
aviation law that will violate Kurdistan’s rights,”
he added.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki has said on a
number of occasions that central authorities do not
know what is happening in Kurdistan’s airports.
“Maliki says he doesn’t know how the airports here
work, what planes land or fly out,” said Fayiq. “But
because everything is in their control and the
situation is tense, I cannot answer him.”
But the director of Iraqi Civil Aviation Agency,
Nasser Hussein Bandar, told Rudaw that the KRG
request for some aviation authority “is not sensible
and will lead to chaos.”
Bandar believes the central government should
control aviation, and that two authorities would
lead to confusion. If the KRG was to establish its
own aviation authority, it would have to meet the
conditions of Iraqi civil aviation, according to
Bandar.
“The authority to close down airports and control
air traffic flow would rest with Baghdad,” he
explained.
By Nawzad Mahmoud- Rudaw
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