BAGHDAD (AP) — An airline in Greece will start running direct flights from the European Union country to Baghdad before the end of the year, the Greek foreign minister announced Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

Giorgos Gerapetritis said that Greek air carrier Aegean Airlines will run its first flight from Athens to Baghdad on Dec. 16. No other European airlines are currently running direct flights to the Iraqi capital.

“I think this will substantially boost our people's 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.”

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