“I think this will substantially boost our people-to-people, economic, but also cultural, ties," Gerapetritis said at a news conference alongside his Iraqi counterpart.
Aegean Airlines and a handful of other carriers already run direct flights from Europe to Irbil, the capital of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north, but carriers had largely steered clear of Baghdad because of security concerns.
After the fall of Iraq's longtime autocratic leader, Saddam Hussein, in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the ensuing security vacuum spawned years of sectarian violence and the rise of armed extremist groups, including the Islamic State group.
In the years since IS lost control of the territory that it once held in Iraq and neighboring Syria, the security situation has stabilized.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, in a statement, welcomed the launch of direct flights, and said that the two countries are discussing “cooperation in the fields of agriculture, investment, and tourism.”
He said that a series of recent visits to Iraq by European leaders “reflect the stability the country is experiencing” and “its growing standing on the international stage.”
Plans are underway to upgrade Baghdad's international airport. Iraq recently awarded a $764 million contract to rehabilitate, expand and operate the airport to a global consortium made up of Corporacion America Airport, a Luxembourg-based airport operator, and Iraqi investment company Amwaj International.