Contradictory news on resuming regular flights between Damascus, Baghdad

The Monte Carlo radio correspondent in Damascus said that news have been contradictory concerning the arrival of a Boeing 747 plane from Saddam Hussein's International airport to Damascus as an indication on the return back of the regular Iraqi civil aviation between the two countries.

At a time when the Iraqi transport minister Ahmad Murtada Ahmad stressed Iraq's resumption of air flights to Syria as from Monday and with two flights weekly, the director of the Syrian civil aviation Hussein Mahfouz denied in press statements that the plane which landed at Damascus airport was registered in Iraq or Syria. He stressed that this plane was a private one for a Gulf air company and is registered in Kenya.

However, Iraqi dailies said on Monday that the Syrian authorities agreed to start regular air flights between Damascus and Baghdad.

The Syrian news agency SANA gave no mention to the arrival of this plane and the Iraqi airline company which has re-opened its office in Damascus by the end of 2000 also denied its ability to sell plane tickets to Iraq for citizens who wish so.

Diplomatic sources had stressed that Washington informed Damascus officially its worries over the steps of rapprochement between Syria and Iraq, but the Syrian sources did not confirm such news.

The same diplomatic sources noted that the main issue to be debated by the US secretary of state Colen Powel during his visit to Damascus is the need of reviving the alliance emerged against Iraq between several countries including Syria during the second Gulf war in 1991.