ARAB-CIS RELATIONS - Sept. 14 - Iraq And Russia Resume Flights.

'Al Thawra' reports Iraq and Russia have agreed to resume flights starting October. The announcement is made by Pavil Piryatku, regional director of the Russian official airline, Aeroflot, presently visiting Iraq for the purpose. Piryatku said: "The decision was taken by Pres. Vladimir Putin in August in Moscow after a meeting with Iraqi Deputy PM Tariq Aziz". Piryatku told the paper that the Russian airliner will reopen its Baghdad office in the middle of October and steps have already been taken to provide equipment and administrative staff. He added that an Iraqi delegation will travel to Moscow later September "to make final touches" on decisions of rates, reservations and number of flights. According to a report by 'ITAR-Tass' Russia's Vnukovskiye Airline has also signed papers with Iraqi Airways ahead of plans to make regular flights to Baghdad. It is unclear whether Russia or Iraq had sought UN permission to resume the flights. In comments broadcast by 'Monte Carlo' radio, Piryatku said he was unable to give "exact information" on whether Moscow had obtained UN approval. (The US, Britain and the UN Sanctions Committee maintain that civil flights to and from Iraq constitute an economic resource whose reinstatement is a breach of the sanctions in place since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Russia and France, Iraq's strongest allies on the UN Security Council, say the council never adopted a specific text banning all flights to and from Iraq. Baghdad also argues that there are no UN resolutions governing the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire that prevent civilian planes from flying in and out of the country. Iraq's Saddam International Airport was last used for commercial flights hours before the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War. Since then, only a few planes have landed, mainly carrying humanitarian aid. The airport was reopened for business in August.) An official at the Iraqi Airways confirms the flight resumption, but says Iraq had hoped the first flight would be by "a brotherly Arab plane".