The first passenger ferry service between Iraq and its Gulf neighbours in more than eight years has set off from Dubai on the 800 km sea journey to Umm Qasr in Iraq.

The luxury cruise liner, Jebel Ali One, is expected to arrive early on Monday.

The ship is owned and operated by a Dubai-based firm which has obtained UN permission for the route.

For sanction-bound Iraq, the opening up of a direct passenger link with the lower Gulf could become something of an economic lifeline.

UN persmission

Ever since UN sanctions were imposed on Iraq after its invasion of neighbouring Kuwait in 1990, travellers to Baghdad have been obliged to take a circuitous route via Jordan.

At a recent press conference in Dubai, Doctor Mohammed Hamdan, the managing director of Naif Marine Services, which operates the new sea route, said the difficult land route was what prompted this ferry service.

The Government of the United Arab Emirates applied for UN permission to operate the route in September last year.

Permission was granted in November, but it has taken another year for this commercial project to take off.

Iraq has long established trade links with a number of Gulf ports.

In the past two years, there's also been a flourishing Gulf trade in smuggled Iraqi fuel oil.

But the promoters of this new service are hoping to stimulate a legal two-way flow of passengers that will evolve into a tourist industry.

Although there is space for 220 cars, for the time being, UN sanctions prevent the ferry from taking passenger's vehicles on board.