First international commercial flight since Assad’s ouster lands in Syria’s capital

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad landed Tuesday at the Damascus airport, arriving from Qatar.

Jordanian state-run Petra news agency reported that a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane departed for Damascus on a test flight.

The head of the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission, Capt. Haitham Misto, who was on board the flight with a team of specialists, said that the aim was to evaluate the technical condition of the Damascus airport before resuming regular flights.

Since the lightning rebel offensive that unseated 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.

Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent days. The Gulf countries are likely to be key to funding Syria’s reconstruction after nearly 14 years of civil war that preceded Assad’s ouster.

On Tuesday, al-Shibani traveled to Jordan to meet with his counterpart in Amman. The Jordanian foreign ministry said that the officials were set to discuss “mechanisms of cooperation in many areas including borders, security, energy, transportation, water, trade and other vital sectors.”

Under Assad’s rule, Jordan had been a main conduit for smuggling highly addictive Captagon amphetamines produced in Syria into Gulf states, which was a point of tension between the two countries.

Syria’s new authorities have made a show of cracking down on the Captagon trade, dismantling former factories in locations including the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a car trading company in Latakia and a factory that once made snack chips in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

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Omar Akour reported from Amman, Jordan. Abby Sewell contributed to this report from Beirut.

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