The Middle East Institute was pleased to host Hemin Hawrami for a discussion of intra-Kurdish dynamics, relations between Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, the issues of Kurdish independence, and the Kurds' relations with Arab Sunnis and Shi'a in the pursuit of national reconciliation in Iraq.
The youngest member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leadership council, Mr. Hawrami was previously active in the Kurdistan Students Union from 1989 to 2000. He served in the office of KRG President Barzani from 2004 to 2010, when he was elected to the leadership council. He has headed the party's foreign relations office for four years.
Speakers
Hemin Hawrami is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Leadership Council and the head of its foreign relations office. Born in 1976 in the town of Halabja, Mr. Hawrami graduated with a BA degree in English Literature in 1999 from the University of Erbil. From 2004-2011, he served in the office of President Barazani. In July 2011, he was appointed head of KDP Foreign Relations office.
Randa Slim is director of the Track II Dialogues initiative at The Middle East Institute and an adjunct research fellow at the New America Foundation. A former vice president of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Slim has been a senior program advisor at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a guest scholar at the United States Institute of Peace, and a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. A long-term practitioner of Track II dialogue and peace-building processes in the Middle East and Central Asia, she co-founded in 2007 the Arab Network for the Study of Democracy, a group of academics and civil society activists from eight Arab countries. She is a member of the advisory committee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's Peacebuilding program and a member of the board of the Project on Middle East Democracy. The author of several studies, book chapters, and articles on conflict management, post-conflict peacebuilding, and Middle East politics, she is completing a book manuscript about Hezbollah.