Air India flight was not allowed at Erbil airport: Kerala CM

Thiruvananthapuram: The special Air India flight that had gone to Iraq to bring back the freed Indian nurses was firstly not allowed to land at the airport and was returning without any Indians on board, told Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy told a news channel on Saturday.

Reportedly Chandy said, “Although we had all the permissions required from the airport, a few problems came up. The flight was sent back without landing in Erbil. The Kerala house resident commissioner Gyanesh Kumar called me from the flight and informed me about the problem. I called up the minister for external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj immediately and the crisis was resolved as soon as she intervened.”

Chandy added that the passengers in the flight lost communication with Delhi for around two hours. "We were all confused for some time. But everything was resolved later," he said.

Chandy also thanked the Narendra Modi government for ensuring the return of the Indian nurses from strife-hit Iraq with their safe evacuation capping days of anxiety for the state as it waited for a resolution to the crisis.

A visibly relieved Chandy expressed his gratitude for the Centre, especially External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, for bringing the matter to a happy conclusion.

"The Centre has acted in complete understanding of the deep anxieties of Kerala. The Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Iraq have made sincere efforts in securing the release of the nurses," Chandy told reporters.

Even his political rivals at home admitted that persistent efforts by Chandy, who had camped in Delhi for the last two days, saw the Centre making all out efforts to secure the return from Iraq of the 46 nurses, one of whom hails from Tamil Nadu.

The Air India flight is carrying a total of 183 Indians from Iraq and 70 of them are from Kerala.