Iraq ready to send airliners through no-fly zones

Iraq opened another crack in the sanctions regime yesterday by announcing the resumption of commercial flights inside the western imposed no-fly zones on November 5.

The transport minister, Ahmed Khalil, said domestic services would operate between Baghdad and Basra, 375 miles to the south, and Mosul, 270 miles to the north. Both destinations lie in the no-fly zones.

The US and Britain imposed the no-fly zones in 1991 to protect Kurds in the north and Shia Muslims in the south from possible attack by Iraqi forces.

Since then both countries have led Iraq to believe that the ban on flights extended to civilian as well as military aircraft. But yesterday a Foreign Office spokesman said the Iraqi announcement "doesn't present a problem, because the no-fly zones don't apply to civilian flights".

As recently as last month western diplomatic sources continued to maintain that civilian flights would be an infringement of the zones.

The reinterpretation of the no-fly rules follows a study of the legal position commissioned by Iraq five months ago.

Last night an Iraqi official told the Guardian: "When we checked it through lawyers, we found out that there wasn't any prohibition on civilian flights in the areas."

Officially, the zones are said to be "derived" from UN security council resolution 688 - which does not actually mention them - though "humanitarian necessity" is also cited as a justification.

Iraq is planning to use Ilyushin aircraft for the internal flights. Before the Gulf war, Iraqi Airways flew 15 Boeing airliners of various types and 22 Ilyushin-76s.

Most of the aircraft were flown abroad for protection, hours before the war began on January 17 1991.

Baghdad has repeatedly asked the UN sanctions committee on Iraq to allow them to be returned. Six of the Boeings are said to be in Amman and four in Tunis. Another five are thought to be in Tehran, together with a number of Ilyushins.