First International Commercial Flight Since Assad's Ouster Lands In Syria's Capital

Representative Image: File Photo

DAMASCUS: The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad landed Tuesday at the Damascus airport, arriving from Qatar. The Qatar Airways flight landed at Damascus International Airport. A crowd of relatives and friends awaited the arrival of the passengers inside a terminal building.

Separately, Jordanian state-run Petra news agency reported that a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane departed for Damascus on a test flight. The head of the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission, Capt Haitham Misto, who was on board the flight with a team of specialists, said that the aim was to evaluate the technical condition of the Damascus airport before resuming regular flights.

Since the lightning rebel offensive that unseated Assad a month ago, Arab and Western countries that had cut off relations with the former government have been reopening diplomatic relations with Syria's new de facto authorities, headed by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

Syria's new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has travelled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent days. The Gulf countries are likely to be key to funding Syria's reconstruction after nearly 14 years of civil war that preceded Assad's ouster. On Tuesday, al-Shibani traveled to Jordan to meet with his counterpart in Amman. The Jordanian foreign ministry said that the officials were set to discuss “mechanisms of cooperation in many areas including borders, security, energy, transportation, water, trade and other vital sectors.” Under Assad's rule, Jordan had been a main conduit for smuggling highly addictive Captagon amphetamines produced in Syria into Gulf states, which was a point of tension between the two countries.

Syria's new authorities have made a show of cracking down on the Captagon trade, dismantling former factories in locations including the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a car trading company in Latakia and a factory that once made snack chips in the Damascus suburb of Douma. “The new situation in Syria has also ended the threats that previously threatened the security of the Kingdom (of Jordan), with regard to drugs and Captagon, and we pledge that this thing has ended and will not return again," al-Shibani said in a joint news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi.

Al-Safadi said that his country supports the Syrian people as they work to “rebuild their homeland on the foundations that preserve its security, stability, sovereignty and unity and fulfil the rights of its people” and that Jordan is “ready to provide electricity to our brothers immediately, and we are also ready to work together to provide gas.” Syria, targeted by stringent Western sanctions, has been in a prolonged economic crisis and Syrians receive only a few hours of state-provided electricity per day.