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Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Part of UK in Turkey

29th May 2015

#REASONSTOLIKEISTANBUL PART 2

I was delighted to spend a couple of hours recently with top Turkish journalist and photographer Ercan Arslan.

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Ercan had come across my Twitter  account @leighturnerFCO and the series #reasonstolikeIstanbul, now at #373.  He asked if we could visit a few of the places I’d tweeted about.

The result was a piece published in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet on 24 May, also available online (in Turkish).  Warning: as the idea was to depict me wandering the city “off duty”, the article features a diplomat not wearing a suit.

I also blogged recently about “My top 5 Tips” on Istanbul.

I’m pleased that #reasonstolikeIstanbul has caught on in Turkey.  Twitter isn’t an end in itself: it’s a means to deliver messages and exchange ideas.  Those messages include the fact that diplomats are human beings; and that most of us are passionate about, and fascinated by, the countries in which we live and work.

The #reasonstolike idea has caught on worldwide – see eg the popular #reasonstolikeCairo series of my colleague John Casson, or the fine #reasonstolikeAstana recently launched by my colleagues in Kazakhstan.

I hope my @leighturnerFCO Twitter feed will continue to report on more #reasonstolikeIstanbul over the months ahead.

About Leigh Turner

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of…

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of the UN and other organisations; stories here will reflect that.

About me: I arrived in Vienna in August 2016 for my second posting in this wonderful city, having first served here in the mid-1980s. My previous job was as HM Consul-General and Director-General for Trade and Investment for Turkey, Central Asia and South Caucasus based in Istanbul.

Further back: I grew up in Nigeria, Exeter, Lesotho, Swaziland and Manchester before attending Cambridge University 1976-79. I worked in several government departments before joining the Foreign Office in 1983.

Keen to go to Africa and South America, I’ve had postings in Vienna (twice), Moscow, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv and Istanbul, plus jobs in London ranging from the EU Budget to the British Overseas Territories.

2002-6 I was lucky enough to spend four years in Berlin running the house, looking after the children (born 1992 and 1994) and doing some writing and journalism.

To return to Vienna as ambassador is a privilege and a pleasure. I hope this blog reflects that.

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art city culture general history Istanbul Karakoy Moda public diplomacy reasonstolikeistanbul UK-Turkey

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