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