Updated 29 July

Suleimaniah, Kurdistan - Iraq (KRG.org) Prime Minister Barham Salih last week inaugurated a new terminal and the construction of a cargo village at Suleimaniah International Airport. The new terminal will increase the airport’s capacity from 1.5 million passengers a year currently to 3.5 million by next year.

Cargo Village, which is receiving investment from the Gulf Mar Company, will regulate and develop cargo handling and is expected to be completed in May 2011. At the ceremony the Prime Minister said the new Cargo Village will help to develop Suleimaniah Governorate's domestic and international trade, and remarked on how rapidly the airport has grown into one of the most important in Iraq. Over the last few years the airport has become one of Iraq's main transport hubs.

Recalling its opening in 2004 only a year after the liberation of Iraq, Prime Minister Salih said, “I had the honour of being one of the first participants in the opening of this airport". The airport helped to break the decades of isolation that had been imposed by the previous Iraqi regime on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by the Minister for Transport Mr Anwar Jabali, the Minister for Housing and Reconstruction Mr Kamaran Ahmad, and Mr Taher Abdullah, General Manager of the airport.