Our meeting with the British Foreign Secretary David Milliband

I didn’t know that it would be a face to face meeting in which the Secretary will have questions to ask us rather than I thought it would be like an informal reception to the Secretary at the ambassador resident.

He was interested in hearing from us as Syrian youth how we think the best way to develop relations between Syria and the UK; he was interested as well in hearing our thoughts about how we see development is going in Syria, the educational system that he said that it is "too French", and we talked about local NGOs as well.

at the same time we expressed our opinions after working with British NGOs and that led us to talk about the British Immigration law, as I explained to him my surprise to find such division between refugees and other locals that I've seen through working in Govan - a community of refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow-.

He also was curious to know in which country we as Syrian youth are affected by and would like to travel to, and asked specifically if we look up to Iran and Turkey.
My answer was that after the US invaded Iraq, our youth are less interested in the American culture and now the eyes are on Europe.

The last two questions were:
- What would you think the British embassy and the British council can do to improve Britain's image among Syrians youth?
Most of the answers were far away from politics and included more support to Syrian NGOs and to programs that include exchanges between the two countries.
I explained that the embassy is rarely to participate in social events or support NGOs, and if the British Embassy's name as a political representive of Britain along witht the British council as a cultural represntive are more involved in the Syrian society, it would help to get the Syrians to see that Britains are intrested in the Syrian culture apart from politics.
Mr. Simon Collis the British Ambassador, explained that funding such projects comes from the British Tax payers and the Embassy along with the foreign and commonwealth office will have to provide the prove for the need to such projects. Syria could do a big part in it by doing business partnership with UK.

one of the questions was:

- Where would you see Syria in 10 years, if I came here in 10 years what would I see differently?
I said that the change certainly would involve a stronger and more vocal civic society.

It was really interesting 40 minutes, the Foreign Secretary was interested in getting an insight to the Syrian community apart from politics; I think that Britain now is serious about building good relationship with Syria which is in Britain interest as much as in the Syrian interest.

However, nothing can be isolated from politics... it was interesting but defiantly not satisfying enough at least to me.