iblog

I was chatting to a friend today who had recently been to Palestine to cover a story and he told me how peaceful some parts of the country were.

I started wondering if the same were true in Iraq. It’s difficult to move beyond the devastation of war there and today saw one of the worst single attacks on civilians since conflict began, leaving over 200 dead in Baghdad.

However, in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous province in the North of the country, there is little conflict. One of the region’s main economic staples is tourism. You won’t hear many stories of people travelling there, but this journalist writing for Vanity Fair took his son there over Christmas and found it to be a safer and inspiring region.   

I don’t mean to detract from the severity of the conflict in Iraq but it’s important to acknowledge that the country is continually striving to move forward. Even though Kurdistan is a separate region with its own government, both the President and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq are Kurdish, Erbil’s streets are still patrolled by the same American soldiers and one day this region will hopefully play a part in the regeneration of the whole country.

You can fly from Vienna to Erbil with Austrian Airlines. For up to date information check out iraqupdates.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.