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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey has extended its flight ban on Sulaimani International Airport for the fifth time since 2023, its civil aviation authority said on Sunday.
Turkey's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it extended the ban on using Turkish airspace for flights from Sulaimani airport, which was set to expire on Sunday, until October 6.
Dana Mohammed, communications director at Sulaimani airport, told Rudaw that they 'have not been informed about the extension decision.'
The decision has prohibited flights in and out of Sulaimani from Turkey's airspace since an initial three-month ban was imposed on April 3, 2023.
When first imposing the ban, Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson at the time Tanju Bilgic said it was in response to an alleged 'intensification' of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) activity in Sulaimani province, referring to the crash of two helicopters carrying Syrian Kurdish fighters a month earlier.
Nine members of the anti-terrorism forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the crash, including their commander, according to the SDF. The helicopters were bound for Sulaimani. Ankara alleges the Syrian forces are affiliated with the PKK.
Turkish officials have repeatedly accused Sulaimani authorities of supporting the PKK and the flight ban is not the first time Ankara has taken punitive measures against the province.
Following the Kurdistan Region's independence referendum in 2017, international airspace to Erbil and Sulaimani airports was ordered closed by the Iraqi federal government. Turkey and most other countries re-opened their airspace to planes bound for Erbil in March 2018. However, Ankara refused to allow flights bound for Sulaimani, citing alleged support for the PKK by the province's ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
In 2017, Ankara expelled the PUK's representative to Turkey after the PKK captured two Turkish intelligence agents in Sulaimani province.
Turkey also frequently carries out air and drone strikes on PKK targets in the province.
Speaking at a regional forum in Erbil in October 2023, PUK leader Bafel Talabani said that his party's problems with Turkey are 'hard to resolve.'
Qubad Talabani, a senior PUK member and the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Region, has held several meetings with Turkish diplomats in recent years, discussing the ban.
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