So how are the airports in Iraq & Kurdistan ?!
One of the volunteer aid workers, the good people who risk their lives to help our children and our people have sent me an email to describe how the journey sounds like from Sulaimani, (a town in the Northern-East part of Iraqi Kurdistan) to somewhere in Europe. It was very interestingly described. So I asked for permission to post here, and got that permission.

Here is goes :

I started off at 9.30 on Monday from Sulaimaniya and reached Ebil at 12.30, had something to eat and got to the airport at 1pm we took off around 1.40 and landed in Baghdad airport at 2.45 and stayed there for 2 hours, normally it is only 1 hour but we were waiting for people to arrive as they were going to a conference in Amman.

The airport is wonderful, they have cleaned it all up, not a photograph of Saddam in sight, they were just filling the shelves in the duty free shops, the only thing that was missing were people, I have never seen an international airport this empty.

We finally landed in Amman at 5.30 we ran into a storm, a bit scary in a very small plane, but the pilot was brilliant and got us to Marka airport in once piece. I arrived at my hotel at 7pm, by this time I was really tired so went straight to bed as I had to get up for the very early flight next morning, finally arrived home at 4pm on Tuesday.

After 9th of April 2003, two airports were built with the help of the American army in Kurdistan. One of them which is functioning now is called "Hawler International Airport" (Erbil)..Well it is nothing "International" yet as they are still working on it. The other one is "Sulaimani Airport" and it will be opened on 15th of February 2005.

There are rumours that the Kurdistan Regional Government have bought 11 jets and they have agreed with the Turkish government to use the Turkish space to link the two airports with international airlines.
There were some reports that Turkey have agreed to cooperate with "Kurdistan Airlines" on the condition that the airoplanes shouldn't have the "Kurdistan flag" and the stewards shouldn't wear "Kurdish clothes".
These are still unconfirmed.

* Amer is talking about "corruption" in Hawler, Kurdistan.


* Also I am helping a famous Kurdish caricature maker to translate his works into "English". I have already posted some of his arts on this blog " KAWA "
If time helps, I will translate more of his works and post them there.