Iraq’s transport ministry said Tuesday that a flight operated by Greece’s Aegean Airlines had been the first European aircraft in 35 years to land at Baghdad’s international airport.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the ministry said the arrival signalled “Iraq’s return to the European aviation map” and ushered in “a new phase of recovery for Iraq’s aviation sector”.<\/p>\n
European airlines have not operated direct flights to Baghdad International Airport for security reasons since the early 1990s, when Iraq’s long-time ruler Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Hussein was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2003, which was followed by a civil war, sectarian violence and the emergence of armed jihadist factions.<\/p>\n
But, after decades of turmoil, Iraq has recently begun to regain a sense of stability and the government is striving to attract foreign investment to bolster the country’s economy.<\/p>\n
The Baghdad\u2013Athens\u2013Baghdad route will operate two flights a week with the possibility of adding more depending on demand, the ministry said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the Greek carrier started flights to Erbil, the capital of the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which presents itself as a relative oasis of stability in volatile Iraq.<\/p>\n
sf-rh\/dc<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraq’s transport ministry said Tuesday that a flight operated by Greece’s Aegean Airlines had been the first European aircraft in 35 years to land at Baghdad’s international airport. In a statement, the ministry said the arrival signalled “Iraq’s return to the European aviation map” and ushered in “a new phase of recovery for Iraq’s aviation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[159,646,157],"class_list":["post-21283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-aviation","tag-greece","tag-iraq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}