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Iraq to launch first flight to Kuwait in more than two decades

Arab World Materials 27 February 2013 13:41 (UTC +04:00)

Iraqi Airways was set Wednesday to relaunch service to neighbouring Kuawit with its first flight there since 1990, said a senior official at the state-owned carrier, dpa reported.

Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990 after an oil dispute, prompting an international military campaign that forced Iraqi troops out of the tiny Gulf emirates months later.

Saddam was toppled in a US-led incursion of Iraq in 2003.

"This flight comes to end a forcible suspension after all obstacles have been removed," Iraqi Airways' assistant general manager Majid al-Amiri told the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat in remarks published Wednesday.

Senior Iraqi officials and diplomats at the Kuwaiti embassy in Baghdad will be aboard the flight, he added.

The airline is to operate three regular Kuwait-bound flights a week, according to al-Amiri.

Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah made a historic trip to Iraq in March last year to attend an Arab summit, the first visit by a leader of the Gulf country to Baghdad since the invasion.

Officials from the two countries have since exchanged visits.

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