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First Syrian plane in more than 18 years lands in Baghdad

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October 9, 2000 

BAGHDAD (AP) - A Syrian plane with senior government officials, doctors, nurses and humanitarian aid on board landed in Baghdad on Sunday, the first such flight in more than 18 years.

"We are Arabs... and we are here to show our support to our brothers in Iraq," said Syrian Cabinet Minister Mohammed Mufdhi Sevo, who led the delegation which included doctors, nurses and representatives of unions and the media.

The Airbus-320 also carried 10 tons of medical and humanitarian supplies. It was received by Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh and Transportation and Communications Minister Ahmed Murtada Ahmed.

The flight is believed to have received clearance from the United Nations. It comes two weeks after France and Russia first challenged the 10-year old sanctions by flying planes to Baghdad without authorization from the U.N. sanctions committee.

Since then there have also been flights from Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria, all of which had received approval. Egyptian, Lebanese and Turkish groups have also announced plans to send planes to Baghdad in coming days.

The flight is also a sign that relations between Iraq and Syria, ruled by rival factions of the Arab nationalist Baath Party, are continuing to thaw. Last week, Syria called for an end to U.N. sanctions against Iraq and trade and transportation links between the two states have recently been increased.

Relations between the two countries began improving in 1997 after a 17-year break in diplomatic ties during which Syria sided with non-Arab Iran against Iraq in their 1980-88 war and fought with the U.S.-led coalition forces against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait.

Iraq's state-controlled newspapers have celebrated the flights as a sign that the sanctions' regime is crumbling, but U.N. sanctions committee chairman, Dutch ambassador to the United Nations Peter van Walsum, has said Baghdad would be making a "tragic mistake" if it thought that sanctions would disappear without allowing weapons inspections to resume.

The embargo, imposed in 1990 to punish Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait, can only be lifted after Iraq proves that it has destroyed all of its weapons of mass destruction and the capability to manufacture them. Baghdad says it has complied, but refuses to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors.