Permission granted for tourist project in Basra - Aswat al-Iraq

An Iraqi Company with a Kuwaiti partner, supported by international consultant firms, was granted permission to start a tourist compound at the coasts of Shatt al-Arab waterway at a total cost of $107 million, the director of Basra’s investment commission said on Monday.

“The project consists of two stages, and will be finalized within five years,” Dr. Hayder Ali told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“It would occupy an area of 158 donums (One Iraqi donum equals 2500 square meters),” he said.

Guided tours - Business Standard

Intrepid travellers are once again trickling into Iraq.

If you don’t mind braving the threat of daily suicide bombings and kidnappings, and the hassle of wading through innumerable security checkpoints, Iraq is back as a tourist destination. Though you still might not be able to sit down for a cup of tea at a roadside cafe, the Iraqi government has thrown open its various religious and historical sites, including some on the UN’s World Heritage list, after a lull of almost six years. And tourists have started trickling in. The month of March saw the first-ever tour group travel through Iraq from south to north.

Baghdad: Divided by the Tigris river, it is a mix of grand old mosques, structures built in Saddam’s reign and traditional Arab souks. Here you can start sampling the country’s cuisine, based largely around chicken, lamb, beef and the trademark dish of masgouf, or barbecued carp. Most meals also include small portions of salad, hummus and bread or rice.

Mosul: This city is the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq. It is a city that is said to be made for walking. The town centre is dominated by a maze of streets and attractive 19th-century houses. You will find various ethnicities that mix here — Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans — fascinating.

Babylon: It is the world’s most famous historical city, once ruled by 10 Mesopotamian dynasties, starting with the dynasty of King Hammurabi and ending with Nebuchadnezzar II, who is credited with Babylon’s existing ruins. It has been alleged that occupying American soldiers have damaged some ruins.

Ctesiphon: The historically important site is about 30 km to the south-east of Baghdad. Here you find the colossal arch of the great banqueting hall of the great palace of Sapor. It is believed to be the widest and highest single-span vault built of baked bricks in the world.

Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf: South of Baghdad, it is a site of great religious significance to Shia Muslims, as it is the shrine of Imam Ali. The shrine is enclosed in a mosque in the city centre, which is resplendent with a golden dome made of 7,777 tiles of pure gold and two 35-metre high golden minarets, each covered with 40,000 gold tiles.

The marshes: South of Basra, the area formed by the Tigris and Euphrates delta is an extensive wetland, home to a variety of birds, fish, plants, reeds, and bulrushes. It is home to the Marsh Arabs, who live in huts (known as sarifas) built from reeds with elaborate latticework entrances and attractive designs.

Direct flights to Baghdad revived - Times

Anyone in Britain planning a trip to Iraq will be able to fly there directly as early as next month after Baghdad asked London to reopen the once-popular route, closed for almost two decades because of war and sanctions.

At present, Iraq-bound travellers must hop to one of a handful of capitals, most commonly Amman or Dubai, before flying on to Baghdad, but a British-Iraqi working group is exploring the possibility of re-launching direct flights between the two countries.

“I give full permission [for flights to resume] from the Iraqi side and I wait the answer from the British side,” Amer AbdulJabbar Ismail, the Iraqi Transport Minister, told The Times yesterday in an interview at his Baghdad office.

“I am expecting within the month to get the permission.” Over the past week, Iraq revived routes to Athens, Stockholm and Copenhagen. The Transport Ministry is also in talks with the German and Indian aviation authorities to start flights between Frankfurt and Baghdad as well as to Bombay.

Daily flights resumed between Baghdad and Amman in 2004. There are also regular planes shuttling back and forth to Tehran, Beirut, Dubai and Istanbul. Further in the future, Iraq hopes to run flights to the US city of Detroit.

Mr Ismail said it was important to restart the London route because Britain is an important country and many Iraqis reside there.

In addition, “Britain took part in liberating Iraq, now they want to invest in Basra therefore we are encouraged to talk to Britain”, he said, speaking in English.

Further enhancing ties between the two countries, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, is planning a trip to London towards the end of the month to meet with Gordon Brown and to attend a conference on investment in Iraq. It will be the first visit to London by Mr Maliki since February 2008, when he came for a second round of medical tests. Medical matters are not on the cards this time.

The Transport Minister will be among a group of about 10 ministers travelling with Mr Maliki. He hopes to use the trip to seal the deal to revive the London-Baghdad route. Iraqi Airways, the national carrier, is geared up to make the trip, while it will also be open to any other international airline flying out of London.

UN sanctions imposed on the former regime of Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990 included a ban on all flights going to and from Iraq. Departure and arrival boards, listing flights to destinations such as London, Tokyo and Moscow, stood frozen in time until a year after the 2003 invasion when the airport was reopened to the public.

Deborah Haynes

New flights were slow to materialise, however, because of the insurgency that raged in the following years. The few commercial planes that used Baghdad airport had to perform corkscrew take-offs and landings to limit the risk of being hit by a surface-to-air missile or rocket propelled grenade.

A drop in the violence since 2007 has been matched by an increase in destinations accessible from Iraq. British planes have been able to fly over the country since last month in a sign of this renewed confidence.

In a further indication of normality returning, the flight information boards at Baghdad International Airport flicked back to life earlier this week, once again displaying flight destinations, departure times and arrival times.

“I feel very happy,” the Transport Minister said.

Tourism potential 'phenomenal' for wartorn Basra - PA

By Sam Marsden, PA

Basra's potential as a tourist destination is "quite phenomenal", offering everything from historic sites to bird watching, according to Britain's Consul General in southern Iraq.

The city was once known as the "Venice of the East", but today it is still emerging from the effects of decades of neglect under Saddam Hussein, a series of wars and a bloody insurgency.
But British Consul General Nigel Haywood says it now sees itself as a future rival to Dubai - albeit with much more to offer.

He said: "The tourism potential for Basra is actually quite phenomenal. It's just not there yet."
Mr Haywood cited the example of a bird watcher he met at a party while he was back home in the village of Corfe Castle in Dorset.

The ornithologist enthused about the Basra warbler and the fact that the province is on major bird migration routes, leading the Consul General to wonder whether British RSPB members might one day flock to southern Iraq.

Basra already has one five-star hotel nearing completion and Iranian investors are proposing to build a second.

Mr Haywood said: "It sees its future as a major cosmopolitan trading city on one of the key transport routes from East to West...

"(Dubai) is the direction of travel that Basra would like to take - except that it would see itself as having much more than Dubai."

But he added: "I think it's going to be a long time before people come out here for beach holidays.

"The city itself has the potential to look absolutely stunning, but there's a long way to go."
Basra was on the itinerary of a small group of adventurous Western tourists - among them five Britons - who visited Iraq earlier this month in the first trip of its kind since the 2003 invasion.
Mr Haywood has seen the security situation in the city improve dramatically since he arrived in April 2008.

But he is not keen to encourage other British tourists to visit Iraq in the immediate future.
He said: "Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice remains what it says on our website, which is: Don't come here unless your travel is essential.

"It's still arguably a risky activity, we still have people held hostage here. That always has to be borne in mind.

"While investors are likely to be able to put in place good security arrangements for their visitors, individual tourists are less likely to."

Mr Haywood is not expecting a rush of UK holiday makers to arrive in Iraq, and anticipates that the British consulate in Basra will become focused primarily on promoting business ties.
"Consulates abroad are there for the protection of British citizens, although increasingly if you look at the way our consulates operate, much of the work is promotion of trade and investment," he said.

"That's the kind of consulate I would expect to see here in the future."

Tina's dream holiday - to Iraq

TWO intrepid travellers were back in Brighouse last night after being among the first group of western package tourists to visit Iraq since the 2003 US invasion.

The 17-day tour, which took in Baghdad, Basra and the holy site of Samarra, where a bombing in 2006 sparked months of sectarian violence, would have been unthinkable 12 months ago.Organised by Hinterland Travel, the independent travel company run by Geoff Hann, of Brighouse, the trip attracted eight tourists, including civil servant Tina Townsend-Greaves, aged 36, of Victoria Street, Clifton.

None of the group could get travel insurance and all of them travelled against Home Office advice. Violence still plagues Baghdad and other areas in Iraq and there were explosions near the group's hotel in the city on the sixth anniversary of the US invasion.

But the most serious problems the group experienced were numerous frustrating security checkpoints, delays and last-minute changes to travel plans. Said Geoff: "There is a new administration in Iraq and they are still very inexperienced and nervous. Due to security considerations we weren't able to see all the ancient sites we had planned but it was encouraging to see ordinary Iraqis going out and about on the streets again. In some ways things were better than on my last visit in 2003 and a lot of the bombed-out tanks and remnants of the conflict have been cleared away.

"Since returning to Brighouse, Geoff has been beseiged with requests for interviews from news organisations from all over the world, including Australia, America, Italy and Germany. An interview with a CNN reporter in Iraq was broadcast during the trip.

"I can't believe the amount of interest in the trip. I was out in Iraq in November for a tourism conference and that's when I started to think an organised tour might be possible again. I'm hoping we'll be able to go again in April or May. On the whole I think Iraq is safe for tourists but they need to get more of the sites open for people to visit.

"For Tina, who has visited Afghanistan four times, Iran, Kurdistan and Georgia, the chance to go to Iraq was too tempting to pass up. "I used to like my luxury holidays but in recent years I have become interested in archeology and travel and have got used to roughing it. It was a privilege to be able to go to Iraq and see how the country is coping.

The people were very welcoming and also curious about what we were doing there - as were the American troops we met. Obviously the many checkpoints got very tedious at times but you have to use common sense.

"The group travelled round by minibus with an Iraqi driver and interpreter and stayed in local hotels. "One of the highlights was visiting the El Hadi Mosque, which had been almost destroyed by bombing, but is now being rebuilt. We also went to Uruk, one of the most important sites in the country, and went down to the south where there is a very strict dress code for women.

"Sadly we did not get the chance to see the museum in Baghdad or any of the monuments because they were suddenly shut to visitors. There is a lot of in-fighting between various factions in the administration and that might have been the reason. But the people on the streets were very surprised and pleased to see us - I think, for them, it is a small sign that things might be getting back to some sort of normality."

Would you pack for Iraq?

A tourist group has just completed a 17-day tour there, which either shows the triumph of the human spirit or a serious lack of taste

Mary Warnock
No thank you. I detest travelling anyway. I mean the actual process of deciding what to take, packing, getting to the airport two hours early without what you could call a ticket, just a floppy piece of paper, taking off your shoes, having your nail scissors confiscated and then sitting about in the most squalid place imaginable until your flight is called. To put up with all that voluntarily is madness enough, even if you are not facing probable death and certain acute discomfort for 17 days. Besides, I'd be haunted by Bush and Blair.

• Mary Warnock is a philosopher and crossbench peer

Donald Macleod
Once the idea is put into your head, it becomes almost a moral obligation. If you don't go, it's because you don't have the bottle. You might then convince yourself that it would be fun to stand by a plaque in Basra - "Abraham left from here" - and even more fun to set off on a jolly hunt for weapons of mass destruction, but the idea of a war zone as a tourist venue is the ultimate in sick entrepreneurship: "Where there's war, there's brass." If we want a dose of realist tourism, why not a package holiday to one of HM's prisons?

• Donald Macleod is principal of the Free Church College, Edinburgh

Diane Abbott
It is hard to get inside the head of anyone who would pick Iraq for their holiday. I cannot imagine that they are interested in the archaeological heritage. Otherwise they would know much of it was looted during the war. I assume they would think that they were going on some sort of seaside holiday. So I would take a bucket and spade, a deckchair, a candyfloss machine and home-made dirty postcards featuring ladies in burkas in order to write "wish you were here" to friends and family. And I would also take the collected speeches of Tony Blair.

• Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington

Rob Penn
Without hesitation. Muslim hospitality is unparalleled and it would be an important step for the people of Iraq. When I cycled through Bosnia in 1997, I met anger - a skinhead chased me out of a bar - and consternation. "Don't leave the road," a Serbian policeman said. "The farmers dump the land mines there." But then people began to realise I was a tourist, not a soldier, war crimes investigator, journalist or aid worker. They took me into their homes and wept. I was, I understood, a symbol of transition and hope. If there were tourists, the horror was over.

• Rob Penn is a travel writer

'I took a picture to show my dentist' - the first package tourists arrive in Iraq

When tourism chiefs in Basra were assessing the prospects for western visitors four years ago, their verdict was not encouraging. "There is," they said, "a 70% to 80% chance you will be OK."

Things must have improved because yesterday the first group of western package tourists to visit Iraq's capital and second city finally arrived in Baghdad - tired, uninsured and a little exasperated, but happy - after a 17-day tour that would have been unthinkable 12 months ago.

On the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the irony was compelling: the last group of western foreigners to arrive outside the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad were invading US marines. Six years on, the assembled group of four Britons, a Russian who lives in London, two Americans and a Canadian wielded nothing more menacing than suitcases and dogeared tourism guides.

The adventurers arrived exhausted after a 10-hour road trip from Basra, which itself had its highs (three stops at noted sites of ancient Mesopotamia) and its lows (no fewer than 40 checkpoints).

Bridgett Jones, a retired civil servant in her 70s, had longed to see the ancient site of Ur, deemed by historians as a cradle of civilisation, ever since a stint 55 years ago at the Near Eastern Institute of Archeology in London.

With Jones was a retired postmaster turned entrepreneur from Northumberland, Gordon Moore, 75, and Tina Townsend-Greaves, 36, a civil servant from Yorkshire. All had been on at least one pioneering tour before, to either Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, or the Kurdish north of Iraq, with the same travel company, Hinterland Travel.

"I thought I would see a lot more damage," said Townsend-Greaves. "I have travelled to Afghanistan and there were rusting tanks everywhere. Here it's plastic bags and concrete blocks." En route to Baghdad, the group visited the tomb of the Hebrew prophet Ezra, about 40 miles north of Basra. Iraq is peppered with reminders that it is a fabled land to more than one monotheistic faith.

The tour was organised by Geoff Hann, who has been bringing groups to Iraq since the 1970s. He was last in Baghdad in October 2003 before returning for a travel conference late last year, then deciding security had improved enough to risk another tour.

Most clients were retired people with an abiding interest in the culture, rather than would-be war tourists, he said.
"Dealing with the former government was probably more ordered," he said when asked to compare than and now. "As long as you did what Saddam's guards asked you to, you were fine."

None of the group could get travel insurance and all turned up despite stern warnings from the Foreign Office.

Checkpoints and delays aside, life in the new Iraq has had other frustrations. A trip to the National Museum was cancelled late on Friday without any explanation. The party said they felt like pawns in a power play between feuding government departments which are still grappling with the novelty of foreign tourists.

"What can I do about it?" shrugged their Iraqi Tourism Board minder, Saadi Kashaf. "They wanted to go to some of the dangerous places, like Mosul and Samaraand.
"I got them there," he added.

Kashaf said the government hoped to lure more tourists. But at a minimum of £1,900 for 17 days, Iraq is a long way from being on the budget tour list.

The Mesopotamia tour, as the Hinterland Travel website calls it, would set you back well over £2,000.

The 17-day trip starts in Baghdad and takes in Samarra and Hatra before heading north to Irbil, in Kurdistan. After another stop-off in Baghdad the trail heads south to the shrines at Kerbala and Najaf. Southern sites covered include the ancient city of Ur, the fourth-millennium site of Uruk, and the old Marsh Arab area. There is a two-day interlude in Basra before the return to Baghdad.

This probably isn't for those who get upset at shoddy accommodation. Hinterland travel makes no secret of it: "Hotels have been badly treated by all concerned so our tour will be very varied in the quality of hotels that we can use," it says. The next tour is scheduled for April.

Wish you were here

Day 1 London to Damascus
Day 2 Damascus
Day 3 Damascus to Baghdad (flight)
Day 4 Baghdad
Day 5 Baghdad-Samarra-Hatra-Irbil
Day 6 Irbil excursions
Day 7 Irbil-Nimrud, Mar Benham-Assur-Baghdad
Day 8 Baghdad excursions
Day 9 Baghdad-Ctesiphon-Babylon-Bordippa-Hilla
Day 10 Hilla-Kish-Ukheider-Kerbala
Day 11 Kerbala-El Khifal-Kufa-Najaf
Day 12 Najaf-Nippur-Warka (Uruk)-Larsa-Nasiriya
Day 13 Nasiriya-Ur-Eridu-Tel Ubaid-Nasiriya
Day 14 Marsh area to Basra
Day 15 Basra with excursions
Day 16 Basra to Baghdad by plane or train
Day 17 Baghdad-Damascus-London

Four Britons to join first tourist trip to Baghdad - Telegraph

Four Britons will be among the first tour group of westerners to risk a holiday in the Arab areas of Iraq for six years when they fly to Baghdad in March.

They will be accompanied at all times by armed guards and forbidden from leaving their hotels at night or wandering off alone during their two-week tour by minibus of a dozen sites including Baghdad, Babylon, and Basra.

Surrey-based Hinterland Travel, which has organised the tour, ran trips to the country during Saddam's rule and then briefly in October 2003 before violence made it too dangerous.

Geoff Hann, the company's managing director, said he now was the right time to go back. "We're seeing the beginnings of a new Iraq," he said. "They want normality, and tourism is part of that. If we make this trip and show that it is possible to do it successfully, that will contribute to normality."

The first, tentative return of tourists to what has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world is being seen by Iraqi officials as a vote of confidence in its improved security over the last year. There are still car-bombings and assassinations, but the level of violence has fallen dramatically since its peak, when thousands of Iraqis were being killed each week.

"It's an encouraging sign of our return towards normality that tourists are willing to consider a trip here," one official said.

None of those on the first tour - including two Americans, a Canadian, a Russian and a New Zealander - have visited Iraq before.

Tina Townsend-Greaves, aged 46, a civil servant from Yorkshire who works for the Department of Health, said she jumped at the chance after visiting Afghanistan, Iran and other places in the Middle East.

"Most people are interested in seeing your holiday photos afterwards, even if they think you're a bit mad for going," she said.

"I wouldn't go if I thought there were serious risks. I'm really looking forward to seeing the historical sites, especially Babylon."

The tour will include Baghdad and the nearby town of Samarra, a flashpoint in the sectarian conflict after its golden mosque was blown up in 2006. The ancient sites of Babylon, Nimrud and Ctesiphon will be visited, and the great Shia pilgrimage sites of Najaf and Kerbala which are on the way to the southern city of Basra where 4,000 British troops are still based.

Mr Hann said the party would be avoiding the most dangerous places like Fallujah and Mosul.

"Iraqi friends have said there will be places where you won't be welcome, and if we encounter that, we will move on. People who come on this trip must understand the risk," he said. "But Iraqis say that things are getting better day by day and in Baghdad it is changing fast."

Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq in recent months and provincial elections last weekend went smoothly with few reports of attacks.

The trip will cost £1,900 including flights to Baghdad via Damascus. The itinerary includes Baghdad's museum, which was looted in 2003, and the party will attempt to see some of Saddam's old palaces, if occupying British and American soldiers will allow access.

The trip will be made despite a standing warning from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office against travel in nearly all of Iraq, including Baghdad, because of the high risk of terrorism. The british embassy in Baghdad points out that terrorists, insurgents and criminals are likely to target organisations or individuals of western appearance and describes road travel as "highly dangerous".

Tourist park to be set up south of Basra

Under the supervision of Basra's construction unit, a local company initiated work on a project to establish a tourist park along the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the south of Basra.


The project, whose total cost is $1.7 million, will be carried out as part of the 2008 provincial development projects, the head of the unit, Engineer Ziyad Ali Fadhil, told Aswat al-Iraq.

Read the full report on Zawya.com

Iraq to promote its tourist potential

Basra could become a jumping off point for tourists while its surrounding marshlands could become a haven for bird watchers, British officials have said.

The suggestion comes as the Iraqi government starts to explore ways to exploit the tourism possibilities in the war-torn country, including rides on Saddam Hussein's presidential train, following a reduction in the violence that has raged for the last five years.

Nigel Hayward, Britain's Consul General for southern Iraq, said Basra's port could be turned into a haven for cruise ships, offering a gateway to the historic sites of ancient Mesopotamia just a few hours north of the city.

They include the ancient city of Babylon - famous for its hanging gardens - and the town of Ur, located near the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

Read the full article on the Daily Telegraph web site here

All aboard Saddam Hussein's own train

Saddam Hussein's luxury, private train, equipped with chandeliers and Italian-made curtains, is being put into public service to help ease a train shortage, Iraqi rail officials said yesterday.
The 23-carriage, French-built train was kept in a secret location for three decades and shielded from the widespread looting that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Starting in the near future, the train will ferry passengers between Baghdad and the southern city of Basra, said Karim al-Tamimi, a spokesman for Iraq's rail system.

Read more from The Australian

Watch a BBC news video on the train