Julian Walker

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Julian Walker is a former British diplomat.[1]

Walker first arrived in Sharjah as a junior British official in late 1953, and in the following year became Assistant Political Officer in Dubai. He was political agent in Dubai in 1971, at the time of the formation of the United Arab Emirates.[2]

He later served as ambassador to Yemen, and then Qatar. He worked on the Iraq-Kuwait border question following the 1991 Gulf War.[3]

He retired in 1993, having served in postings including the Trucial States, Oman, Baghdad, Morocco, Berlin, Northern Ireland and Lebanon, the Yemen and Qatar.[4]

Qualcomm

The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004, that Walker was on the board of Guardian Net, whose bid for a mobile contract in Iraq was favoured by Pentagon official John A. Shaw, over the objections of two other US officials, Daniel Sudnick and Bonnie Carroll :

Sudnick and Carroll told Pentagon investigators that they did not realize Ganley headed Liberty Mobile.
They also did not recognize other Guardian Net board members who had been Liberty Mobile board members, including DeMarino and Julian Walker, a British citizen, former ambassador and Iraqi expert who had met Shaw in England through an acquaintance. Walker is currently under contract with Shaw's office to do small-arms research, Shaw said.[5]


Mother Jones reported that Walker was on the board of Qualcomm, whose technology would have been used in the Guardian Net bid:

Another member of the Qualcomm consortium board who had ties to Shaw was Julian Walker, a former British ambassador to Qatar who had also been a liaison to the Iraqi resistance to Saddam Hussein. Shaw hired Walker as a contract investigator to look into the illegal arms trade in Iraq, a position that had him working out of Shaw's office in the Pentagon. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Shaw dismissed claims that such mixing of friendship and business was improper.[6]

Criticises deportations

In 2005, Walker featured in a story on the enforced return of failed asylum seekers to Iraq:

Julian Walker, policy officer at the Kurdish Cultural Centre, said: 'If they are sent back to unsafe areas, they may well be killed. They won't be given any help or training so they can't really help with reconstruction work even if there are any jobs for them.'
He said the centre had received reports of ethnic Kurds from non-Kurdish parts of the country, as well as non-Kurds, being picked up during the Home Office operation.[7]


External Resources

Notes

  1. Visit of Mr Julian Walker (Tuesday 11th March), The Petroleum Institute, accessed 21 October 2011.
  2. Visit of Mr Julian Walker (Tuesday 11th March), The Petroleum Institute, accessed 21 October 2011.
  3. Visit of Mr Julian Walker (Tuesday 11th March), The Petroleum Institute, accessed 21 October 2011.
  4. Julian Walker, The Emergence of the UAE Federation, accessed via Google Docs on 22 October 2011. Original at: http://www.ncdr.ae/ncdr/New%20Perspectives%20on%20Recording%20UAE%20History/Abstracts/Sir%20Julian%20Walker.doc
  5. T. Christian Miller, Iraq: Cellular Project Leads to U.S. Inquiry, Los Angeles Times, 29 April 2004, archived at CorpWatch.
  6. Michael Scherer, Crossing the Lines, Mother Jones, September/October 2004.
  7. Nigel Morris, FORCED RETURN OF IRAQIS IMMINENT AS 40 ASYLUM-SEEKERS ARE ROUNDED UP, The Independent, 16 August 2005.