Iraq could cancel the construction license of a provincial airport.
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Iraq’s ministry of planning and development cooperation announced that it had suspended a license awarded to Saladin province to build a civil airport at an estimated cost of $150m, an official has said.
The airport was planned to be completed within a four year period, the deputy governor of Saladin city, Ahmed Abdullah said, in a report by Zawya.
“We are not sure why the license to build the airport was suspended,” he added. “The province complies with the necessary conditions for building the airport, on which other licenses were awarded to other cities, such as Diyala, Dhi Qar, Anbar, Babil and Kirkuk.”
The project is located in the Sadirat Albu Ajeel, 15km from the centre of the province and 40km from the city of Samarra.
Abdullah said that provincial officials would hold talks with the federal authority in Baghdad to dissuade them from rejecting the license renewal.
Iraq’s four airports are located in Basra, Baghdad, Najaf and Mosul. The self-governed region of Iraqi Kurdistan has two airports, Ebril and Sulaymaniyah, which are regulated by the Kurdish Regional Government.
The airport in Saladin was being built to help support an expected economic boom in the province, fuelled by the discovery of oil fields and a surge in tourism.