A light sandwich lunch is served at 12.50pm before the seminar. 

The current armed conflict in Iraq is the latest phase in a longer-run, underlying struggle in Iraq since 2003. De-escalating such a conflict, let alone resolving it, is not easy. In the main, the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Region government, and their foreign partners have focused on ending the conflict by military means. What is the role of dialogue between the Iraqi public and the state, about how the country is governed, reconciliation, and future peace? And what lessons are there from the past in Iraq, and from other conflicts?
 

Richard Barltrop is a consultant and researcher on conflict, development and peace in North Africa and the Middle East, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa. He has worked for the United Nations Development Programme in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, the Sudans and Yemen, and during 2014-16 has worked on assignments in Iraq. His book Darfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris, 2011) won the Toyin Falola Africa Book Award in 2011. In 2015 he was the Sir William Luce Memorial Fellow at Durham University. He has a DPhil in International Relations, an MPhil in Middle Eastern Studies and a BA in Classics from the University of Oxford.