Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) resumed services from Istanbul Atatürk to Sulaymaniyah on January 26, 2019, following a 16-month-long ban imposed by the Ankara government, Anadolu news agency has reported.

According to Flightradar24 ADS-B data, the maiden flight to the airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdish north of Iraq was operated with A321-200 TC-JNP (msn 7516). The service is now scheduled as 7x weekly using a mix of A319-100, B737-800 and A321-200 equipment.

The Head of the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority Ali Khalil Ibrahim said that Iraqi Airways (IA, Baghdad) will also shortly resume its services from Sulaymaniyah to Istanbul.

The Turkish flag carrier suspended the service on September 29, 2017, after Baghdad shut off Kurdistan's international flight connectivity following its unilateral independence referendum. Iraq restored international service to both Erbil and Sulaymaniyah in March 2018 but Turkey has only done so for the former airport.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Sulaymaniyah, besides Iraqi Airways, sees scheduled regional services by Qatar Airways, Caspian Airlines, flydubai, Royal Jordanian, Air Arabia, and Mahan Air.

The Turkish government has a rocky relationship with its domestic Kurd population, which it represses and accuses of terrorism and separatism. However, it traditionally had better relations with the Iraqi Kurdish population.