Author Archives: admin

This week’s column by Gary Kent A paradox I have found in travelling around Kurdistan is that I often learn as much about Britain as about Kurdistan. Exposure to a different culture and thinking forces me to re-examine what I … Continue reading →

The Jews of Kurdistan Lecture by Professor Yona Sabar, Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic, UCLA and Ariel Sabar, author of My Father’s Paradise Royal Geographical Society, London Thursday 28th June 2012 Lecture by Professor Yona Sabar, Professor of Hebrew and … Continue reading →

DISCUSSING the nature of national identity and its complex links to political power doesn’t apply just in Scotland. The Kurdistan region in Iraq is also such a place; it has about five million people, a strong historic identity and is … Continue reading →

Westminster is in recess, the focus is on the Queen’s 60th anniversary and I have been back to Kurdistan for my ninth visit which prompts me to offer a view from Westminster rather than about the UK Parliament. To paraphrase … Continue reading →

The construction boom across Kurdistan inevitably creates ugly building sites but they soon go and landscaping can blend the new build into the environment. Sadly other eyesores just seem to go on forever. Kurds are fiercely patriotic judging by all … Continue reading →

Some years back a young Iraqi Kurdish woman had to pass through Turkey but knew that talking Kurdish or mentioning Kurdistan could be awkward. The problem was that her first name was Kurdistan. When asked her name at passport control … Continue reading →

Robert Halfon is the Conservative MP for Harlow and a Vice-Chair of the APPG on the Kurdistan Region. Follow Rob on Twitter. The British Government should formally recognise historic atrocities against the Iraqi Kurds as genocide according to a report … Continue reading →

Have you heard the one about two Christians, two Jews and two Muslims in a hotel in Iraqi Kurdistan? None of us on the recent parliamentary delegation there devised a witty answer but we did establish that all are welcome … Continue reading →

We keep saying that UK Plc should help its economic prospects by exporting our goods and services and investing in places with a pent-up demand for quality. One such place, which has been impossible to access for many years but … Continue reading →

The recent inaugural Oil and Gas conference in Erbil, the capital of the largely autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq, attracted 600 people including senior politicians and executives from across the world in what is likely to be a regular feature … Continue reading →