Two planes carrying humanitarian aid, one Turkish and the other Syrian, landed in Baghdad on Wednesday in the latest solidarity flights against decade-old sanctions, AFP reported.
The Turkish plane’s landing coincided with a statement by Turkish officials saying that they were prepared to open fully an oil pipeline from Iraq, which has been officially closed since the imposition of UN trade sanctions after it’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, according to Reuters.
Trade with Iraq, Turkey’s largest trade partner before the 1990 war, dropped sharply from some 2.5 billion dollars in early 1990’s, and is governed by UN deal that allows it to buy food and medicine, according to the agency.
The flight, the second from Turkey to land at Saddam International Airport in three days, landed at 0820 GMT. The Syrian plane is the second in four days, touched down five minutes later.
Several high-ranking Iraqi officials welcomed the two delegations on board at the airport, the Iraqi News Agency reported.
A humanitarian flight from Egypt was expected in Baghdad later Wednesday, according to Mohammad Samy, head of the "Popular delegation for the lifting of the embargo on Iraq", a non-governmental organization in Cairo.
An aircraft from Istanbul carrying a surgeon among a Turkish delegation landed at the Iraqi capital on Monday.
A Syrian plane flew into the Iraqi capital on Sunday for the first time in 20 years, as part of a campaign of solidarity flights against a UN air embargo – (Several Sources)
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