"New Tehran airport to reopen as govt backs down: report"

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

New Teheran airport to reopen as govt backs down: report 
Reuters


Teheran's new airport looked set to reopen yesterday, three days after being
abruptly closed by the army on its first day of operation in a dispute over
the operating company. 'The airport has not been reopened yet,' civil
aviation spokesman Jafar Poursadeghian said, after a spokesman for the elite
Revolutionary Guards told the student news agency Isna that the military had
lifted its blockade.

Gen Ali Reza Afshar, a deputy chief of the general staff, said there were
'no more problems', adding that the government had backed down and withdrawn
the licence for a foreign company to manage the airport. Troops from the
Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards, who are under the direct command
of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shut the Imam Khomeini
International Airport (IKIA) on Saturday after the first flight touched
down, forcing aircraft to be diverted to the old airport of Mehrabad.

The army opposed the awarding of a licence to manage IKIA to Tepe-Akfen-Vie
(TAV), an Austrian-Turkish consortium, claiming it has business interests in
Israel and thus endangered the country's security. The Iranian government
had declared the closure illegal and threatened legal action against
'irresponsible officials'.

The official Irna news agency earlier said Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi
has named two lawmakers to investigate the closure which he said was 'a
disaster and a disgrace for the country'.

The stand-off raised concerns that the military was ignoring embattled
reformist President Mohammad Khatami's government, and that foreign
investors would think twice before investing in the Islamic Republic's
economic development.


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