ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkey has renewed its flight ban on Sulaimani International Airport for the fifth time since 2023, according to the country’s civil aviation authority, which announced the extension on Sunday.

The ban is set to end on October 6, based on the official statement.

The New Region reached out to officials at Sulaimani International Airport, but they were not immediately available for comment.

The initial flight ban was imposed in April 2023, with Ankara citing increased activities of the now-dissolved Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the region as the reason.

Local officials in Sulaimani, including Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Qubad Talabani, have repeatedly called on Ankara to lift the bans, but their requests have gone unanswered.

PUK leader Bafel Talabani has said multiple times that resolving issues with Ankara is not easy.

The recent extension comes just days ahead of a planned PKK event in Sulaimani to begin destroying its weapons, following a historic call in February from its imprisoned founder Abdullah Ocalan, for the group to disband.

The PKK declared an end to its armed campaign in May—a conflict that has resulted in over 40,000 deaths since 1984 and strained Turkey's relations with its Kurdish population and neighboring countries.

This historic decision to disband was announced after the militant group's 12th Congress in early May, which responded to Ocalan's call for disarmament and marked the end of a decades-long armed struggle against Turkey.

In his message, Ocalan emphasized that it was time for the Kurdish movement to shift toward dialogue, democracy, and politics.

Designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara and Western allies, the PKK has fought for Kurdish rights in Turkey for decades, primarily engaging in armed clashes with Turkish forces from the mountainous regions along the Kurdish areas in Iraq and Syria.