Airport spokesman Dana Mohammed told AFP that "at 1:50 am (2250 GMT) the first Turkish Airlines flight landed in Sulaimaniyah Airport from Turkey, with 105 passengers on board... before departing to Istanbul with 123 passengers".

Turkey had announced in April 2023 a ban on flights to and from Sulaimaniyah International Airport over allegations that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) had infiltrated the airport and boosted activity in the province.

Mohammed said that Monday's flights marked "the end of the ban" on the airport, adding that "Turkish airspace has been reopened as of today to flights from Europe to the (Sulaimaniyah) airport and vice versa".

Turkey is the main transit point for flights in and out of the key city in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

The spokesman added that Turkish Airlines would operate four weekly flights to the city, while the Turkish budget carrier AJet would begin flights from December.

Days after Ankara announced the ban, Iraq accused Turkey of striking near the airport while US forces were visiting alongside Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkey has repeatedly alleged that the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), a key component of the SDF, are linked to the PKK.

The PKK began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq last month.

The group formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that had claimed some 50,000 lives.

str-cbg/jsa/ser

TURKISH AIRLINES