Travel advisory for Indians not to make Iraq journey remains: MEA

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson, Syed Akbaruddin on Wednesday reiterated the travel advisory for Indians not to travel to Iraq owing to the situation being not appropriate.

"We have issued an advisory and reiterated it again yesterday, that Indian nationals are advised not to travel to Iraq. Our view is that, currently the situation is not appropriate for anyone to travel to Iraq from India, and that applies accross the board," he said.

On the issue of two nurses evacuated apart from 46 nurses in the conflict zone, Akbaruddin said," I can confirm to you now that apart from those 46 nurses who were in Tikrit, there were nurses in the conflict zone elsewhere and I would like to inform you that we have been able to rescue and evacuate two other nurses who were elsewhere in the zone of conflict. Those two nurses who were in the zone of conflict , they are now in Karbala which is again a safe place, we will ensure that they return, we have bought their tickets since and they will fly back to India as soon as flights are available."

Regarding those 46 nurses still trapped in the conflict zone, he said, "Now as regards the nurses in the zone of conflict,I have told you yesterday and let me reiterate today, we are in touch with them. This is a difficult situation, because they are in a zone of conflict which is not under the control of the Iraqi authorities. However, by our last communication as of now none has intruded in the hospital. They have electricty and food supplies. We are working with a variety of people to try and see how best we can move them out from there. It's not possible to use land routes."

"17 people have been evacuated from conflict zone yesterday and they have travelled out of Iraq," he added.

"Our efforts are on every front, these are on the front door, which is diplomacy, there are efforts through the backdoor and finally as efforts and measuresare underway through trapdoors. The External Affairs Minister is montoring the situation and she has now summoned all Indian Ambassadors to Gulf in Delhi on 29th where there will be a meeting," he further added.