ZagrosJet (Erbil) has had one of its two A321-200s impounded at Istanbul Atatürk by Turkish authorities who claim the aircraft will only be released once the carrier settles unspecified outstanding debts owed to co-parent, Atlasjet Airlines (Antalya).

The Iraqi airline's CEO Moffak Hamad told Turkey's Basnews that Zagrosjet had sought help from the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority (IqCAA) to help resolve the impasse. Hamad claims it is the Turks who in fact owe the carrier outstanding claims.

“Atlasjet, a Turkish airline has prevented a ZagrosJet plane from flying out of Istanbul back to the Kurdistan Region since the start of the month and this is a violation of Iraqi civil aviation regulations,” he said. “Atlasjet claims that our company owes them money. In fact they owe us about USD4 million and this incident has cost us a further USD5 million.”

Zagrosjet is a partnership between Turkey’s Atlasjet and the Zagros Group, a group of companies based in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. The two partners seem to have fallen out in the meantime leading to diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Iraq with Atlasjet Airlines (Antalya) banned from operating to Iraq recently as well.