First international flight since Assad’s ouster lands in Syria : NPR

DAMASCUS, Syria — The primary worldwide industrial flight because the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad landed Tuesday on the Damascus airport.

The Qatar Airways flight landed at Damascus Worldwide Airport, greeted by the passengers’ kinfolk and buddies inside a terminal constructing.

Ashad al-Suleibi, head of Syria’s Air Transport Authority, stated Qatar had supplied help in rehabilitating the airport, which had suffered from years of neglect in addition to sustaining damages from periodic Israeli airstrikes.

“Truthfully, there was plenty of harm from the (Assad) regime to this vigorous space and this vigorous airport and likewise the Aleppo airport,” he stated.

Many passengers had been Syrian nationals coming come for the primary time in additional than a decade.

Osama Musalama, who got here from the USA, stated it was his first go to since earlier than the civil struggle that began in 2011.

“I misplaced hope that I’d come again to Syria,” he stated. “We had been ready for this second and misplaced hope, however thank God now the nation is again to its folks.”

Individually, Jordanian state-run Petra information company reported {that a} Royal Jordanian Airways aircraft departed for Damascus on a check flight. The top of Jordan’s Civil Aviation Regulatory Fee, Capt. Haitham Misto, who was on board the flight with a workforce of specialists, stated that the goal was to guage the technical situation of Damascus airport earlier than resuming common flights.

For the reason that lightning insurgent offensive that unseated Assad a month in the past, Arab and Western international locations that had lower off relations with the previous authorities have been reopening diplomatic relations with Syria’s new de facto authorities, headed by the Islamist former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

Syria’s new overseas minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in latest days. The Gulf international locations are more likely to be key to funding Syria’s reconstruction after practically 14 years of civil struggle that preceded Assad’s ouster.

On Tuesday, al-Shibani traveled to Jordan to satisfy together with his counterpart in Amman. Jordan’s overseas ministry stated the officers had been set to debate “mechanisms of cooperation in lots of areas together with borders, safety, power, transportation, water, commerce and different very important sectors.”

Underneath Assad’s rule, Jordan had been a primary conduit for smuggling extremely addictive Captagon amphetamines produced in Syria into Gulf states, which was some extent of pressure between the 2 international locations.

Syria’s new authorities have made a present of cracking down on the Captagon commerce, dismantling former factories in places together with the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a automobile buying and selling firm in Latakia and a manufacturing facility that after made snack chips within the Damascus suburb of Douma.

“The brand new scenario in Syria has additionally ended the threats that beforehand threatened the safety of the Kingdom (of Jordan), with regard to medication and Captagon, and we pledge that this factor has ended and won’t return once more,” al-Shibani stated in a joint information convention with Jordanian Overseas Minister Ayman al-Safadi.

Al-Safadi stated that his nation helps the Syrian folks as they work to “rebuild their homeland on the foundations that protect its safety, stability, sovereignty and unity and fulfill the rights of its folks,” including that Jordan is “prepared to offer electrical energy to our brothers instantly, and we’re additionally able to work collectively to offer gasoline.”

Syria, focused by stringent Western sanctions, has been in a chronic financial disaster and Syrians obtain only some hours of state-provided electrical energy per day.