Iran to reopen disputed int'l airport

Chinaview.cn:

A statement of the country's civil aviation authorities was quoted as saying that Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA) will be reopened on April 30, and it will initially handle all flights on the route between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Furthermore, all flights from Iran to the Persian Gulf littoral states and vice versa, barring Saudi Arabia, will be transferred from the old Mehrabad Airport to the IKIA on May 9.

The IKIA was closed down on May 8, 2004 just after it was inaugurated with the landing of a foreign aircraft.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, one of the country's most powerful institutions, stormed the new airport on the day it opened to protest at the involvement of a Turkish-Austrian consortium.

The Revolutionary Guards argued that the consortium also had dealings with arch-enemy Israel. READ MORE