ANKARA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced on Friday the flight ban to northern Iraq's Erbil has been lifted.
"Turkey has opened its air space for flights to Erbil as of today. However, there will be no flights to Sulaymaniyah," Yildirim told reporters in capital Ankara.
Commercial flights would be available from either Turkey or Europe to Erbil, he added.
An international flight ban had been imposed on the Kurdish region after Erbil, the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, held an independence referendum last September in defiance of Baghdad's wishes.
On March 13, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also announced the decision to lift the five-month-old flight ban "after local authorities in the Kurdish region handed over control of the two airports to federal authorities."
