Saeed bin Mubarak al-Khayarin, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Afghanistan, has said that a technical team was able to reopen Kabul airport to receive aid, adding that domestic flights had restarted.
Al-Khayarin said that the Qatari technical team worked for five continuous days and succeeded in partially restarting Kabul airport for flights designated for humanitarian aid led by Qatar's plane carrying 15 tons of food aid.
The ambassador told Al Jazeera in an interview that the Qatari technical team "was able to operate the airport for the arrival of humanitarian aid from all over the world," and that "these humanitarian flights will continue in the coming days."
"Soon, international flights will be operated," al-Khayarin said, adding that two domestic flights of Afghan Airlines operated on Saturday, one to Mazar-i-Sharif and the other to Kandahar.
Al-Khayarin explained that the radar, communications tower and runway was repaired, and security was secured inside and outside the airport, in cooperation with the Afghan government, and continued.
"We are in the process of evaluating the airport's administrative situation and restarting it within a short period of time," he noted.
On Saturday morning, fifth Qatari plane arrived at Hamid Karzai International Airport carrying humanitarian aid.
Kabul airport had been closed since the end of the massive US-led airlift of its citizens, other Western nationals and Afghans who helped Western countries. The end of that operation marked the withdrawal of the last US forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, speaking at a joint news conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in Doha on Thursday, said Qatar was talking to the Taliban and working with Turkey for potential technical support to restart operations in Kabul airport.
