First international flight since al-Assad’s removal lands in Syria

The Damascus airport has welcomed the first international commercial flight since Bashar al-Assad’s ascent since he was ousted from power.

The Qatar Airways flight touched down in a terminal building on Tuesday, where the passengers’ friends and relatives greeted the arrivals.

Ashad al-Suleibi, head of Syria’s Air Transport Authority, said Qatar had provided assistance in rehabilitating the airport, which had suffered from years of neglect as well as sustaining damages from periodic Israeli air strikes.

“There was a lot of damage from the]al-Assad] regime to this lively area and this lively airport and also the Aleppo airport”, he said.

Many of the travelers were Syrian nationals returning for the first time in more than ten years.

Osama Musalama, a citizen of the United States, described it as his first visit since the start of the civil war in 2011.

“I lost hope that I would come back to Syria”, he said. “We were hoping for this moment and lost hope,” he said, “but God bless, the country is now welcoming its citizens.”

A Royal Jordanian Airlines plane took off for Damascus on a test flight, according to a separate report from the Jordanian state-run Petra news agency.

The objective of the study was to assess the technical state of Damascus airport before resuming regular flights, according to Haitham Misto, the head of Jordan’s Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission.

Arab and Western nations that had strained diplomatic ties with Syria’s new de facto authorities, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have since resumed diplomatic contact with the country’s former government following the lightning rebel offensive that a month ago.

‘ Security, stability, sovereignty ‘

Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has travelled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent days. After nearly 14 years of civil war that came to an end with al-Assad’s ouster, Gulf nations are likely to be instrumental in funding Syria’s reconstruction.

On Tuesday, al-Shibani travelled to Jordan to meet with his counterpart in Amman. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said the officials were set to discuss “mechanisms of cooperation in many areas including borders, security, energy, transportation, water, trade and other vital sectors”.

Jordan had been the main conduit for the highly addictive Captagon amphetamine smuggling into Gulf states, which created a source of tension between the two nations under al-Assad’s rule.

The new government of Syria has taken to the streets of former factories in locations like the Mezzeh air base in Damascus, a car trading company in Latakia, and a factory that once produced snack chips in the Douma suburb of Damascus.

In a joint press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi, al-Shibani and al-Shibani stated, “We pledge that this thing has ended and will not return to the country.”

Al-Safadi stated that his country supports the Syrian people in their efforts to “rebuild their homeland on the foundations that safeguard its security, stability, sovereignty, and unity and uphold the rights of its citizens,” adding that Jordan is “ready to provide electricity to our brothers immediately, and we are also working together to provide gas.”

Syria, targeted by stringent Western sanctions, has been in a prolonged economic crisis. Only a small percentage of the day’s electricity is provided by the state.

At the joint news conference, al-Shibani also stated that an inclusive committee is expected to be formed to prepare for a “national dialogue conference” to discuss the country’s future.

He claimed that the interim authorities had intended to hold the conference in the first few days of January, but instead “we decided to establish an expanded preparation committee” that would convene at an undetermined time.

Source: Aljazeera