Long-awaited Kirkuk airport still not open, local gov’t calls for assessment
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Authorities in Iraq's disputed province of Kirkuk have called on the national Civil Aviation Authority to send a technical committee to evaluate the ongoing construction work at a local airport to open it "as quickly as possible."
Over the past few years, repeated setbacks have stalled the opening of the Kirkuk International Airport, formerly a military base. Baghdad announced it was repurposing the facility for civilian travel in 2018, so far reportedly only witnessing one flight boarded by Iraqi officials.
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The government was initially planning to have the airport open for business by July 2018, but local officials said two months later that there had been delays due to the unrehabilitated runway and other technical issues at the site.
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American forces used it for military purposes after the fall of the former Iraqi regime in 2003. Iraqi forces now hold it, since Kirkuk is part of the contested territories claimed by both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government of Iraq.
The Kirkuk provincial government said in a statement that acting governor Rakan al-Jubouri met Monday with the head of the Iraqi aviation body, Durid Yahya, and discussed with him "the pace of the opening of the Kirkuk civilian airport."
The participants in the meeting agreed to "complete the procedures needed to open Kirkuk International Airport as soon as possible and to send a technical committee to carry out an examination and grant international flight licenses to make the dream of the people of Kirkuk a reality," the statement said.
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The Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority said in a recent statement that the facility is nearly 90 percent complete.
It Yahya as saying, "The Civil Aviation Authority is determined to provide various support and assistance for the completion of the Kirkuk International Airport… and to start the first stages of the registration of documents by the Civil Aviation Authority for the purpose of opening it in the coming period." The statement did not specify any sort of time frame.
Local officials have previously told Kurdistan 24 that the facility is still under construction and lacks many of the necessary elements that must be available at international airports.
An Iraqi News Agency (INA) report recently said that the airport would be used for both civilian and military flight, but it is unclear whether the airport would, in practice, be available to international flights or restricted to domestic ones.
Editing by John J. Catherine