‘Travel ban Bahrain’s sovereign affair’

TDT | Manama

Imposing travel ban is a sovereign decision of Bahrain and a purely internal matter on which Iraq will not interfere, an AlAyam report quoting a top Iraqi embassy official said. The Chargé d’Affairs of the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq to Bahrain, Muhammad Adnan, was responding to the report that entry is denied for Bahrainis citizens to Iraq via Bahrain International Airport over pandemic concerns. Muhammad Adnan said Iraq respects the principles of national sovereignty and would not interfere in Bahraini decisions.

“It’s a sovereign matter of the Kingdom of Bahrain, in which the Iraqi authorities do not interfere,” Adnan told AlAyam. The Chargé d’Affairs said Iraqi authorities have started issuing visas for the Arba’een pilgrimage, which takes place forty days after the day of Ashura.

The event commemorates the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, who got killed on the 10th day of the month of Muharram. The official said that some Bahraini citizens obtained visit visas to Iraq, with prior- approval from the official authorities in Iraq.

AlAyam report said the embassy of Iraq has started issuing visas for the “fortieth-day” visit which falls this year on October 8 on a quota basis. “The embassy is receiving applications through tourism offices authorised to organise religious trips, and not directly through individuals,” AlAyam report quoted the embassy official as saying.

The decision follows a directive from the Iraqi government to issue a limited number of visas, 1,500 visas for each country, on October 1. Arrangements are in place to receive travellers for the Arba’een at airports at the Baghdad and Najaf. The city of Karbala in Iraq is the centre of the proceedings which many pilgrims travel miles on foot to reach.

The Iraqi embassy resumes the issuance of visas after a hiatus of several months since the start of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Earlier, Iraq has banned entry to travellers coming from Bahrain, China, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand in March.

In early September, the Iraqi embassy had also distanced itself from advertisements by travel and tourism agencies on organising trips to Iraq, AlAyam report says. Iraq had recorded more than 372,000 cases of COVID-19, over 9,000 deaths since the pandemic began to spread, according to statistics.