Foreigners scramble out of Iraqi Kurdistan ahead of retaliatory flight ban

Iraq's central government has ordered a halt to all international flights to and from the autonomous region from 6:00 pm today

Foreigners scrambled to leave Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday hours before the start of a flight ban imposed by Baghdad in retaliation for an independence referendum that has sent regional tensions soaring.

Iraq's central government has ordered a halt to all international flights to and from the autonomous region from 6:00 pm (local time) on Friday after Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence.

Washington has said it would be willing to facilitate talks between the Iraqi Kurdish authorities and Baghdad to calm escalating tensions over the 92-percent "yes" vote, as a top Shiite cleric called for solving the crisis in an Iraqi court.

Neighbouring Turkey and Iran also strongly opposed the vote, fearing it would inflame the separatist aspirations of their own sizable Kurdish population.

Ankara has threatened a series of measures including blocking crucial oil exports from the region via Turkey.

The Kurds have condemned the flight suspension as "collective punishment".

Today, Iraqi Kurdistan's transport ministry sent a letter to Baghdad asking to "open negotiations" on flights but was still awaiting a reply, a ministry spokesman said.

The ban has seen people, many of them foreigners, flock to the airport in the regional capital Arbil to avoid being stranded.

An extended suspension of flights would have significant consequences for the Kurds, who have turned Arbil into a regional transport hub.

Iraqi Kurdistan is home to a large international community, most of whom enter on a visa issued by the regional authorities that is not recognised by the central government, so they cannot travel to elsewhere in Iraq.

Today, around 100 passengers waited eagerly for their planes in Arbil, where the information board showed the last flight out was to Vienna at 4 pm with later flights cancelled.

"We were supposed to go back to Brazil next Saturday but we rescheduled our flight because of the border closing," said Isidoro Junior, a 32-year-old volunteer for an NGO providing medical assistance to Iraqis displaced by the war against the Islamic State group.

"We are a group of 16 people, so it was quite difficult to find enough seats. One of us came here at 2 am to make sure... we would be able to fly out," he said.

In the region's second-largest city Sulaimaniyah, foreigners and others needing to leave sped to the airport, while Kurds who were abroad for business or tourism rushed back from abroad.

"There have been masses of people for two days," said airport spokesman Dana Mohammad Said.

"After 6 pm there will be no more international flights, just internal flights," he said.

The civil aviation authority in Baghdad has said that a decision on internal flights will be made later.