A Syrian girl who arrived at a primary worldwide business flight for the reason that fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad shouts anti-Assad slogans on the arrival terminal of Damascus worldwide airport, in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday.
Omar Sanadiki/AP
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Omar Sanadiki/AP
DAMASCUS, Syria — The primary worldwide business flight for the reason that fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad landed Tuesday on the Damascus airport.
The Qatar Airways flight landed at Damascus Worldwide Airport, greeted by the passengers’ relations and associates inside a terminal constructing.
Ashad al-Suleibi, head of Syria’s Air Transport Authority, mentioned Qatar had offered help in rehabilitating the airport, which had suffered from years of neglect in addition to sustaining damages from periodic Israeli airstrikes.
“Honestly, there was a lot of damage from the (Assad) regime to this lively area and this lively airport and also the Aleppo airport,” he mentioned.
Many passengers had been Syrian nationals coming come for the primary time in additional than a decade.
Qatar Airways aircraft, background, a primary worldwide business flight for the reason that fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, lands at Damascus worldwide airport arriving from Qatar, in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday.
Omar Sanadiki/AP
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Omar Sanadiki/AP
Osama Musalama, who got here from the US, mentioned it was his first go to since earlier than the civil struggle that began in 2011.
“I lost hope that I would come back to Syria,” he mentioned. “We were waiting for this moment and lost hope, but thank God now the country is back to its people.”
Individually, Jordanian state-run Petra information company reported {that a} Royal Jordanian Airways aircraft departed for Damascus on a check flight. The pinnacle of Jordan’s Civil Aviation Regulatory Fee, Capt. Haitham Misto, who was on board the flight with a group of specialists, mentioned that the purpose was to guage the technical situation of Damascus airport earlier than resuming common flights.
For the reason that lightning insurgent offensive that unseated Assad a month in the past, Arab and Western international locations that had lower off relations with the previous authorities have been reopening diplomatic relations with Syria’s new de facto authorities, headed by the Islamist former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.
Syria’s new international minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in latest days. The Gulf international locations are more likely to be key to funding Syria’s reconstruction after practically 14 years of civil struggle that preceded Assad’s ouster.
Folks wait to obtain their relations on the arrival terminal, after a primary worldwide business flight for the reason that fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad landed at Damascus worldwide airport, in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday.
Omar Sanadiki/AP
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Omar Sanadiki/AP
On Tuesday, al-Shibani traveled to Jordan to satisfy together with his counterpart in Amman. Jordan’s international ministry mentioned the officers had been set to debate “mechanisms of cooperation in many areas including borders, security, energy, transportation, water, trade and other vital sectors.”
Beneath Assad’s rule, Jordan had been a fundamental conduit for smuggling extremely addictive Captagon amphetamines produced in Syria into Gulf states, which was some extent of stress between the 2 international locations.
Syria’s new authorities have made a present of cracking down on the Captagon commerce, dismantling former factories in places together with the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a automobile buying and selling firm in Latakia and a manufacturing facility that when made snack chips within the Damascus suburb of Douma.
Passengers who arrived at a primary worldwide business flight for the reason that fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, wait to obtain their luggages on the arrival terminal of Damascus worldwide airport, in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday.
Omar Sanadiki/AP
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Omar Sanadiki/AP
“The new situation in Syria has also ended the threats that previously threatened the security of the Kingdom (of Jordan), with regard to drugs and Captagon, and we pledge that this thing has ended and will not return again,” al-Shibani mentioned in a joint information convention with Jordanian International Minister Ayman al-Safadi.
Al-Safadi mentioned that his nation helps the Syrian folks as they work to “rebuild their homeland on the foundations that preserve its security, stability, sovereignty and unity and fulfill the rights of its people,” including that Jordan is “ready to provide electricity to our brothers immediately, and we are also ready to work together to provide gas.”
Syria, focused by stringent Western sanctions, has been in a protracted financial disaster and Syrians obtain only some hours of state-provided electrical energy per day.
