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October 16, 2018

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Iraq, Syria to reopen key border crossing

A BORDER crossing between Syria and Iraq is to reopen soon, Damascus and Baghdad’s top diplomats said yesterday, hours after other Syrian frontier posts reopened with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan.

“We are now looking at the interest of the Syrian and Iraqi people in opening up the Albu Kamal crossing ... as soon as possible,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters in Damascus.

Albu Kamal is the only one of three crossings on the Iraqi border in Syria’s far east to be controlled by regime forces on the Syrian side.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari added that the opening of the crossing, known as Al-Qaim in Iraq, was “imminent.”

After Syria’s war broke out, rebels and then jihadists from Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate took over the Albu Kamal frontier post. In 2014, Islamic State seized control of the crossing as it swept across large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring a so-called “caliphate” in areas it controlled.

The two other crossings escape regime control. To the north, Yaarubiya, known as Rabia on the Iraqi side, in northeastern Hasakeh province is held by Kurds.




 

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