September 20, 2007
From asap, The Associated Press
In a nation of car bombings, shootouts and sectarian strife, the Kurdish city of Irbil is a place of relative peace -- a place where markets are busy, people walk around alone at night and residents drive around in large cars that would be conspicuous attack targets in a place like Baghdad.
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, the AP's bureau chief in Istanbul, Turkey, recently paid a visit to Irbil, the informal capital of the Iraqi part of Kurdistan -- a predominantly Kurdish region that also reaches into parts of Turkey, Syria and Iran.
Torchia, who's spent considerable time in other parts of Iraq, got on the phone with AP Deputy International Editor NICOLAS B. TATRO to talk about what makes Irbil different and surprising -- from the relatively (though not perfectly) calm security situation to the development of hotels and parkland.
He also recounts a 10 p.m. stroll with a local government official in search of an ice cream cone -- something he couldn't imagine doing on a Baghdad street.
Listen to the conversation between Torchia and Tatro in this asap podcast.
http://asap.ap.org/data/interactives/_news/podcast/0920asap_tatro.mp3
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