The Turkish government decided on Monday to close the country’s airspace for Iraqi Kurdistan and said work had started to hand over the mainland border crossing into the autonomous region to the central Iraqi government.
Earlier in the day Turkey's National Security Council recommended to close the country's airspace for Iraqi Kurdistan and hand control over one of the checkpoints located on the Iraqi-Turkish border to Baghdad.
"The government made a decision to close down the Turkish airspace for northern Iraq," government spokesman Bekir Bozdağ told reporters.
