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-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

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