Baghdad in Washington talks for carve-out as Iraqi airports shut Iran routes

Iraq is negotiating directly with Washington to win exemptions from a US aviation blacklist that has effectively grounded Iranian passenger services at four Iraqi airports, according to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi released on Saturday.

The Iraqi prime minister's media office said US exemptions covering Baghdad would allow flights to resume on grounds connected to medical treatment, education, religious travel and "the interests of civilians" — language that frames the requested carve-out as a humanitarian matter rather than a political concession.

The suspension came into force on Friday, when airports in Baghdad, Najaf, Erbil and Sulaimaniyah stopped all flights to and from Iran, days after Washington announced new sanctions targeting any company anywhere in the world that does business with Iranian airlines. Because the measures are extraterritorial in effect, Iraqi carriers and airport operators have been cut off from their Iranian routes without any decision by the Iraqi government.

That decision has left travellers with no practical alternative but long overland journeys. Passengers who had been flying between the two countries are now facing land crossings of at least 12 hours, a turnaround that has upended pilgrimage, family and commercial travel plans across one of the region's busiest air corridors.

The stakes are unusually high because of who uses these routes. Iraq and Iran are both Shia-majority countries, and the Najaf connection in particular carries large numbers of Iraqi Shia Muslim pilgrims travelling to holy sites in Iran, alongside Iranians visiting sacred locations in Iraq. Najaf's airport is one of the country's busiest international terminals, and its disruption is felt well beyond ordinary tourism.

Domestic reaction has been swift and divided. On Saturday, a large crowd gathered in the streets of Baghdad to oppose the suspensions, in a protest organised by Iran-allied Iraqi militias. The demonstration underlined the political pressure on al-Zaidi's government, which is balancing ties to both Tehran and Washington.

Religious institutions have joined the chorus. Dozens of scholars and students from the Hawza of Najaf, described as the oldest and most influential Shia seminary in the world, held a vigil on Saturday evening against the halt of Iranian flights, according to Shafaq News. A statement read out by the seminary's Scholarly Assembly condemned the suspension as arriving at a moment when "the peoples of the region are most in need of strengthening the bonds of brotherhood", and urged the government to "maintain the independence and sovereignty of Iraqi decision-making".

Diplomatically, both capitals are playing the situation down while pressing for a quick fix. Iraq's ambassador to Tehran, Yasser al-Hajjaj, said the suspension would be temporary and would not affect relations between the two countries. Speaking to Iraq's state news agency, he said Baghdad was in contact with Iranian authorities to restore normal air traffic as soon as possible.

Al-Hajjaj argued that Iraqi-Iranian ties are "too deep to be affected by a temporary crisis", pointing to roughly 100,000 Iraqi students enrolled at Iranian institutions, an Iraqi community numbering in the hundreds of thousands living in Iran, and thousands of crossings across the border every day. Those numbers, he suggested, make sustained disruption untenable for both governments.

Iran has offered similar reassurance. The Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem al-Sadegh, said officials from the two countries remain in contact and that a new decision on flights is likely to be announced soon, Iran's IRNA news agency reported. The two messages suggest neither Tehran nor Baghdad is preparing for a prolonged rupture.

Baghdad itself has framed the crisis as a reason for dialogue rather than confrontation. The prime minister's office said the Iraqi government is working to de-escalate regional tensions and warned that "the continuation of crises further complicates the situation". It called on all parties to pursue dialogue and negotiations to end the current crisis and conflicts in the interests of the region's countries and peoples.

The wider strategic picture remains uncomfortable for Baghdad. Al Jazeera's Jack Hewson, reporting from the Iraqi capital, described the country's position as a tight squeeze between two allies. "Iraq is in a difficult situation, allied both to America and to Iran. At times like this, it is squeezed between the two," he said.

Hewson said the domestic blame is split: some Iraqis fault Iran for being too controlling of Iraq's affairs, while others hold the US and Israel responsible for having started the war in the first place. "Either way, Iraq remains in a very delicate position between all of these larger and more powerful states, continuing to suffer economic consequences and the fallout itself," he added.

For now, the outcome hinges on whether Washington grants the requested exemptions, and on how quickly. Any US concession limited to Baghdad would leave Najaf, Erbil and Sulaimaniyah — including the critical pilgrimage route through Najaf — outside the relief, and both officials and clerics have pressed for a solution that keeps Iraqi decision-making independent of outside pressure. A decision from Baghdad, Erbil and Tehran is reportedly imminent, but the competing claims over Iraq's sovereignty suggest the dispute is as much about alignment as it is about air traffic.