“If there are no problems, traffic at the border crossing will return to normal next week,” Turki Muhammad Khalaf, district mayor of al-Qaim on the Iraq-Syria border, told Rudaw.
Al-Qaim district, in Iraq’s western Anbar province, is adjacent to al-Bukamal in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. The border crossing was last temporarily reopened to allow nearly 2,000 soldiers of Bashar al-Assad’s regime to return on December 19.
Khalaf said that the gate will facilitate the return of Iraqis stranded in Syria, as well as Syrians in Iraq wishing to return home, but Syrian citizens will not be permitted to enter Iraq yet.
A coalition of rebel groups spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched an offensive against Assad’s in late November, toppling the regime on December 8. Thousands of Syrian soldiers sought refuge in neighboring Iraq.
During the escalation of the conflict between the HTS and the Syrian regime, thousands of soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces, including the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), along with border police, were deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian border in Anbar province. Iraq feared that the developments in the neighboring country could negatively affect its security.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report.
