KABUL: Mission of the Qatari technical team at the Kabul international airport has ended, the Ministry of Transportation and Civil Aviation Authority said the other day.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also, in a statement said that the Islamic Emirate expresses gratitude to the brotherly state of Qatar for key role played in reopening and operationalizing Kabul Airport following the political developments.
The Qatari technical team arrived at Kabul airport the day after the collapse of the former government. Since then, the team has worked on operationalizing and repairing the airport, according to the official.
“The telecommunication devices connected with the airplanes were destroyed. The control tower was damaged. The telecommunication system was restored within three days with the help of Afghan maintenance, engineers and the Qatari team,” said Ghulam Jailani Wafa, deputy minister of Transportation and Civil Aviation.
Qatari, UAE and Turkish companies were bidding for contracts for Afghanistan’s airport operations.
However, the Islamic Emirate signed the contract of the ground and aerial operations’ management with the UAE’s GAAC Company.
Also, economists of the country called for doing more for Kabul Airport to increase flights.
“It is better to solve the political issue with the countries, and then the famous international organizations, and other countries, will trust us to use the Afghan airspace and thus the income through Afghanistan’s airport will increase,” said Darya Khan, an economist, as quoted by some media.
“During the last year, when the Afghan airports were being managed by Qatar and that country played an important role in Afghanistan’s aviation sector, but it has not had any positive role in the facilitation of flights and aerial service,” said Shakir Yaqobi, an economist analyst.
The Kabul Times