Chinese airliner lands in Iraq

A Chinese airliner has landed in Iraq at the start of a three day visit by a government delegation.

It's the first time a plane from China has landed there since civilian flights were halted at the time of the Gulf War in 1991.

China is the third permanent member of the UN Security Council to send a plane to Baghdad in defiance of the embargo on air travel to Iraq since the airport re-opened in August.

The flight follows a visit to China by the Iraqi deputy pime minister, Tareq Aziz, during which he was told by the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, that China would work to lift UN sanctions on Iraq and restore civilian flights to Baghdad. France and Russia are among the countries to have sent humanitarian flights to Iraq to highlight their objections to sanctions.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service