Iraq Briefing
Rarely have I seen a politician so eager to answer all kinds of critical questions like his Excellency Tariq al-Hashimi when giving a lecture at SOAS yesterday in his capacity as Vice President of Iraq.Just coming from Ankara where he had met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, I had to ask him to elaborate on the crucial Kirkuk issue and to give an assessment of any possible intervention by neighboring countries that refuse to see the status of Kirkuk as an inner-Iraqi issue only. Along with Baghdad and Basra, the status of Kirkuk is a highly sensitive matter involving multiple stakeholders. You might imagine what his answer was, no..?!
Heureka!
My dearest friends, I assume you recall how I lost my job as a spy for British special branch a little while ago. Well, lesson learnt, this time I refrained from premature talk and see there…it worked! Your correspondent has a job – a real one this time ☺ (I'm so excited I had to change the picture to your right-hand side.)I might not be spying on innocent students on campus anymore –fair enough! But let me just say that I actually never liked the whole undercover thing. 2007 has started off well and my fellows and I have opened the 2nd term with one kitchen party after the other celebrating what we think is worth raising the glass for –unsurprisingly, we never run out of ideas!OK, just really brief on what wonderful things London has to offer in the upcoming season: I missed the Brand New Heavies last year in New York -so, I might catch up here. I think I mentioned De La Soul in Camden’s Jazz Café. What about Guru Jazzamtazz? Yes, I know, I know...HE will be here and we are all already very excited about it. And so many other things, too many to list them here… Will keep you posted and in the meantime you make sure to be well…Love,Özlem
