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Turkey, Lebanon airlines resume flights to Baghdad

Xinhua, January 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Turkish and Lebanese airlines on Thursday resumed flights to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad after suspending them earlier when bullets hit a United Arab Emirates (UAE) passenger plane while landing, a government statement said.

A Turkish plane landed at Baghdad international airport while the Iraqi Minister of Transportation, Baqir al-Zubaidi, received in his office the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad, the Ministry of Transportation said in a statement.

During the meeting, the Turkish ambassador submitted an official request from the Turkish aviation authority to the Iraqi authorities, demanding an increase of the Turkish flights to Baghdad and to the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern the country, the statement said.

Meanwhile, a source from Baghdad airport told Xinhua that a plane from the Lebanese Middle East Airlines landed in Baghdad airport in the afternoon carrying Iraqi and Arab passengers.

On Monday evening, a plane of budget airliner Flydubai was hit while landing at Baghdad airport by small arms fire from the al-Radhwaniya area, just south of the airport, causing damage to the aircraft.

The incident made Emirates Airlines and some other airlines to halt flights to Baghdad Tuesday, but the Iraqi authorities which launched a probe into the incident, said that the incident was unintentional and stressed that the Iraqi capital airport is fully secured.

Baghdad International Airport is surrounded by a vast and heavily guarded security perimeter and is blocked with concrete blast walls, making it difficult for insurgent groups to fire on the landing and departing planes. Endit