By NNN-KUNA
Baghdad : Iraq’s Ministry of Transport has announced that it is scheduled to open a new international airport in Al-Najaf city in July 2008.
A ministry official statement Monday said that the trial opening of Al-Najaf international airport is scheduled for July 1, 2008. It is expected to receive three million travellers per year.
Head of the media centre in Al-Najaf, Ahmad Abdulhussein Duaibil, said that 60 per cent of the project is complete with a total cost of USD 75 million. The new airport, 80 km east of Al-Najaf city, is expected to include a 3,000 metre-long runway.
He said that the airport includes a passengers waiting hall, navigation tower, fire department building, ground tools department, water plant, airplane parking lot, gas station, electrical station, police station and post office.
Al-Najaf is an important Iraqi tourist city as it yearly receives millions of tourists who visit Khalifa Ali Bin Abi Talib’s Shrine and his two sons, Al-Hussein and Al-Abbas.