Subject: Bittersweet News from Iraq
From: "Ken Wollack" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ken Wollack" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:29:28 -0500

I thought you would be interested in the following email chain from our
Iraq office about the tragic death of a prominent Iraqi MP and a link to
story about reconciliation efforts, to which he and other political
activists were committed.

Ken

Kenneth Wollack
President
National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave., NW
8th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
Tel. No. 202-728-5500
Email: [email-masked]
www.ndi.org

Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse auto-correct mishaps and typos.

A quick update to let you know that MP Abdul Azim al-Ajman, a prominent MP
and a participant in our constituency outreach program, died today in
Nassriyah. The MP ran an extremely active office and he was deeply engaged
in the topic of national reconciliation. He was a key feature of the CoR's
national reconciliation conference that took place last week, which
centered on a plan to increase societal cohesion that he reported being the
chief sponsor of. Although our staff have yet to translate the document, it
seemed interesting and thoughtful from what he told me of it. As a Sunni MP
in Basra, he was uniquely positioned to reflect on this topic and he
practiced what he preached--his constituency office was staffed by both
Shias and Sunnis. At a COA workshop that ended yesterday, his assistant
shared plans to hold additional policy discussions on national
reconciliation and other policy issues.

The details of the MP's death are murky at the moment; while some news
reports say that his car overturned after a tire blew out on the highway,
other news agencies--including state-sponsored affiliates--reported that he
died as a result of an armed attack. However he died, both he and his
assistant expressed concerns about security. As one of 10 Sunni MPs to vote
for the Hashd al-Shaabi law, he joked that if he hadn't he wouldn't be able
to return to Basra and "NDI's constituency office would be burned to the
ground." At any rate, a sad loss for the country.

Aidan Harte
Resident Program Officer
NDI-Iraq
[email-masked] |  +0750 7222 371 (Iraq) | Skype: aharte63

On Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 5:05 PM, Aidan Harte <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Indeed, and we've seen the momentum of the reconciliation chatter picking
> up in the last few weeks. In the past two weeks alone, five MPs and their
> assistants in our COA program have held provincial-level policy discussions
> on post-Mosul reconciliation. There are also two reconciliation workshops
> I'll be attending in BGD over the next 10 days--one sponsored by an
> ISCI-affiliated think tank and the other by the CoR. Happy to send a
> read-out should anything interesting emerge.
>
> Aidan Harte
> Resident Program Officer
> NDI-Iraq
> [email-masked] |  +0750 7222 371 (Iraq) | Skype: aharte63
>
>
>>>> https://www.ndi.org/Iraqi_Party_Activists_Forge_Reconciliation
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>