Commercial flights between Turkiye, Syria resume after 13 years
Istanbul, Jan 23 (AP): Commercial flights between Turkiye and Syria resumed on Thursday after 13 years with a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Damascus.
Turkish media showed Syrian families draped in their national flag singing pro-opposition songs and cheering as they prepared to board flight TK0846 to Damascus.
Passengers continued their celebrations inside the plane, singing the uprising anthem “Hold your head up high, you are a free Syrian.” One man sobbed while waiting for takeoff.
“I missed Syria and am happy to fly back,” said Fuad Abdulhalid, who has lived in Turkey for 12 years.
Another passenger, Nail Beyazid, expressed hope as he prepared to visit his home for the first time since fleeing from Syria.
“We are very happy that (Syria) was liberated, and the situation is very good,” Beyazid said. “We had a house, a factory. We also had cars, which are gone now. We are going back to take a look.”
Since the lightning rebel offensive that ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad a month ago, Arab and Western countries that had cut off relations with the former government have been reopening diplomatic relations with Syria's new de facto authorities, headed by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.
The first international commercial flight since Assad's fall, a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane, landed in Damascus earlier this month.
Turkiye, a key ally of Syria's new authorities, has expressed its intention to invest in its economy and help its ailing electricity and energy sectors.
Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi announced earlier this month that the airline would fly three times a week between Istanbul and Damascus. The move followed a visit to Ankara by Syria's foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Will of people supreme, says Mahua Moitra after BJP's landslide victory in Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): A day after the Trinamool Congress faced a drubbing by the BJP in the West Bengal assembly elections, TMC MP Mohua Moitra on Tuesday said her party respects the mandate as the will of the people is supreme.
She also said that the party will continue the fight for a “secular country”.
In a post on X, Moitra said, “The will of the people is supreme. If Bengal wanted BJP, then Bengal has got BJP. We respect that.”
The BJP on Monday scripted history by winning 206 seats to secure more than a two-thirds majority in the West Bengal assembly polls, ending the TMC’s 15-year rule.
"We fought the good fight against unimaginable odds on an uneven pitch and for that I am proud of my leader & my party," Moitra said.
She said the TMC will continue to stand and fight for a secular country where the constitution, and "not brute majoritarianism, is the last word”.
