Kuwait to begin flights to Baghdad after two decades

BAGHDAD. April 3. KAZINFORM  A Kuwaiti private airway company will begin flights to Baghdad for the first time in more than two decades when ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iraqi official television reported on Tuesday.

"Kuwait's Jezeera Airways Company will inaugurate its flights to Iraq on April 17," the state-run Iraqia channel quoted Kuwait's ambassador to Baghdad Ali al-Momen as saying.

The inauguration flight will include some Kuwaiti dignitaries, al-Momen said, adding that the flight will be a gesture of good and positive initiative that would sort out the issue of the Iraqi Airways company.

Kuwait has demanded 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in reparations from Iraqi Airways for its damages caused by Saddam Hussein's invasion in 1990, Xinhua reports.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Kuwait on March 14 and met with Kuwaiti leaders. The two sides reached a 500 million dollar agreement to resolve a standoff over war reparations that had prevented Iraqi Airways from flying to destinations in the West.

Under the deal, Iraq will pay Kuwait 300 million dollars in cash and will invest another 200 million dollars in a joint Iraqi- Kuwaiti airline venture. In return, Kuwait would lift legal actions against Iraqi Airways.

In 2010, lawyers for the state-owned Kuwait Airways tried to seize an Iraqi Airways plane on its first flight to London more than 20 years after they obtained an order from the High Court in London that included freezing the assets of Iraqi Airways worldwide.

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