From Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN<\/p>\n
November 24, 2011 — Updated 2308 GMT (0708 HKT)<\/p>\n
STORY HIGHLIGHTS<\/p>\n
Iraq and Turkey agree to drop flight bans against each other<\/p>\n
Dispute began over a $3 million debt that Turkey says Iraq owes<\/p>\n
Turkish planes begin landing again in Baghdad on Thursday<\/p>\n
Baghdad (CNN) — Iraq and Turkey have agreed to allow flights between their countries, ending a mutual ban that began with a dispute about how an Iraqi government oil company owed millions of dollars to Turkey, Iraqi officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Turkish planes resumed flights to Iraq on Thursday and were landing at the Baghdad airport, Iraq’s Ministry of Transportation said.<\/p>\n
Iraqi airliners will begin landing in Istanbul on Friday, officials said.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Iraq banned all Turkish flights from landing in the country, including the semiautonomous Kurdish region, as a response to a similar ban last week in Turkey against Iraqi flights.<\/p>\n
However, a Turkish government official denied that Ankara blocked Iraqi planes. The official did say that Turkey warned that if Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization did not pay the $3 million owed to his country, the country would ban Iraqi aircraft.<\/p>\n
Both countries agreed to drop the bans after negotiations.<\/p>\n
After years of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Turkey’s flagship carrier Turkish Airlines was one of the first international companies to begin direct flights to Baghdad. Increasingly, Turkey has grown as a major international gateway for commerce and travel to and from its Iraqi neighbor.<\/p>\n
CNN’s Michael Martinez contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
via Iraq, Turkey end bans on flights, open skies to other country’s planes – CNN.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN November 24, 2011 — Updated 2308 GMT (0708 HKT) STORY HIGHLIGHTS Iraq and Turkey agree to drop flight bans against each other Dispute began over a $3 million debt that Turkey says Iraq owes Turkish planes begin landing again in Baghdad on Thursday Baghdad (CNN) — Iraq and Turkey have agreed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[9727,589],"class_list":["post-46986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iraq","tag-iraq","tag-thy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}