Iraq and Turkey have restored regular railway links after a 20-year break with the arrival of a Turkish freight train in Baghdad Saturday, said reports.
The first train rolled in overnight Friday with a cargo of 450 tons of goods ordered under the UN oil-for-food program, said the deputy director general of Iraqi railways, Falah Hassan, cited by AFP.
He said the line would also be used for Iraqi imports from eastern Europe, without giving a timetable for the freight service.
A passenger train with two sleeper cars will run a weekly service starting from Baghdad on July 20, said Hassan.
The 11-12 hour journey will link Baghdad and Mardin in southeast Turkey, passing through northeast Syria in the absence of a direct line through the mountainous border region.
Railway services between Turkey and Iraq were suspended during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran War.
Relations between the countries were later strained by the Gulf War, in which Turkey took part in the US-led multinational force that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
Turkey still serves as a base for US and British warplanes enforcing the northern no-fly zone in Iraq. Relations have also been affected by Baghdad's oft-repeated accusations that Turkey is restricting the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Earlier this year, Iraq resumed regular train services with neighboring Syria.
Despite past frictions, Turkey is considered to be Iraq's main trading partner. The two countries signed a trade agreement in February and pledged to return their trade exchange to its pre-1990 levels.
Trains are the cheapest form of transportation in Iraq, which has remained under UN sanctions ever since its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Trade in essential goods is authorized under the UN humanitarian program - Albawaba.com
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