Iraqi national airline Iraqi Airways announced on Thursday night that it had suspended flights to Belarus the capital Minsk.
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Iraqi Airways said on its Facebook page that it would suspend flights to Minsk for a week starting on August 5.
However, the website of Minsk Airport says that an Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad landed at the airport on Friday.
This is also confirmed by the information on the website “flightradar24.com”, where it is possible to follow the ongoing flights.
In turn Lithuania Foreign Minister Gabriel Landsberg announced that Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein had assured him that the plane had arrived to take Iraqis who wanted to return home.
“According to the minister, it is an empty plane sent for people who want to go back. Several sources have confirmed this information,” Landsbergis told BNS news agency.
He added that according to unverified information, about 300 Iraqis wanted to return.
The European Union’s (EU) ambassador to Iraq, Martin Hut, told BNS on Wednesday that flights from Iraq to Minsk could be canceled, citing several sources.
The EU is engaged in talks with Baghdad on the return to Iraq of its citizens who have entered Lithuania illegally across the Belarusian border. Negotiations are also underway to reduce the number of flights from Iraq to Minsk.
Information published at Minsk Airport and Iraqi Airways’ website showed that Iraqi Airways, which had so far provided flights to Minsk from Baghdad, planned to launch flights to the Belarusian capital from Basra, Erbil and Suleymaniya in the near future.
The flow of illegal migrants across the Lithuanian-Belarusian border has been rising sharply recently. The total number of illegal immigrants apprehended since the beginning of this year has exceeded 4,100. Most illegal migrants are or pretend to be Iraqi nationals.
Lithuanian officials believe that the Belarussian regime is deliberately facilitating the flow of migrants across the border between the two countries, as Lithuania supports the democratic opposition in Belarus and has given asylum to its leader Svyatlan Cihanouska.
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