Iraq said that it extended its flight suspension to Turkey until October 1, without giving any explanation.
Authorities reopened Baghdad and southern airports last month for international travel after months of closure caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Iraqi citizens who are stranded in Turkey will need to go through diplomatic measures to return home,” a statement by the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority (ICCA) said on Monday.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused havoc in Iraq and has shown no signs of abating despite orders to stay at home and other protective measures imposed since mid-March.
Iraq has recorded nearly 220,000 infected cases and more than 6,740 deaths since the outbreak of the virus.
Daily tallies have increased rapidly in the past few weeks, with cases topping nearly 4,000 every day.
Tensions between Baghdad and Ankara heightened in June after Turkey started a cross-border operations against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq.
Ankara launched the ground offensive, dubbed Operation Claw Tiger, that helped Turkish troops advance deeper into the neighbouring country.
Iraq summoned the Turkish ambassador several times and said the move was in response to Ankara's “violations and breaches" that included a drone attack in Erbil, Kurdistan, which killed two officers and a soldier in August.
Iraq’s foreign ministry then said Baghdad cancelled a visit by Turkey’s defence minister to the country and summoned the ambassador again to inform him of “Iraq’s confirmed rejection of his country’s attacks and violations”.
Turkey has regularly attacked the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), both in its mainly Kurdish south-east and in northern Iraq, where the group is based.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Turkey's south-east.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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