this is bbc news. the headlines: in northern syria, the pentagon has deployed fighterjets and helicopter gunships to warn off turkish—backed fighters. an american official accused them of violating an agreement not to threaten retreating american troops. russia, which backs syria's president assad, has also warned turkey, saying it will not allow clashes with syrian forces. brexit negotiations between the uk and the eu will continue within hours. downing street officials suggest they've been constructive. the eu's chief negotiator had imposed a midnight tuesday deadline — but michel barnier is now stressing the need for an agreement ahead of the summit of european leaders that starts thursday. european football's governing body has opened disciplinary proceedings against bulgaria over the racial abuse of england players in this week's euro 2020 game in sofia. uefa has also called on football fans to wage war on racists. the president of the bulgarian football union resigned after the match.

you are up—to—date on the headlines. it is time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i am at stephen sackur. what makes a whistleblower? what prompts someone to break rank, maybe break the law in order to expose a secret, often at great cost to themselves? well, my guest today is katharine gun. in 2003 she worked at the uk's signals intelligence agency, gchq, she looked potentially explosive information about america's covert effort to sway un diplomats to support the iraq war stop she risked everything, including prison, in an act that changed her life. now her story has been made into a movie. but 16 years on, has her perspective changed?

katharine gun, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. you are in the public eye today because of the release of a film which focuses on a fateful decision you talk 16 years ago. and we will talk about it in some detail. ijust want ago. and we will talk about it in some detail. i just want to ago. and we will talk about it in some detail. ijust want to know, at the beginning, is this gratifying for you to be back in the public eye 01’ for you to be back in the public eye or is it uncomfortable? it's not uncomfortable. i wouldn't say it's gratifying either. but it's certainly interesting. the whole

reason, really, behind going forward with the film and, you know, my sort of great depth of gratitude to gavin hood and joe dougherty, the directors and producers on the film, is that they stuck to the truth. most of the time the material fact the true nfl. so for me it was a matter of getting the issues out, revisiting the issues, and hopefully allowing people to think back to the time and to discuss what happened then and what's happening now. time and to discuss what happened then and what's happening nowm certainly does take people back in time. the film is called 0fficial sequence. it sells keira knightley in the role as you, back in 2003. it is important to take you back, even before then, to figure out who you we re before then, to figure out who you were and why you had decided to become a spy, which is what you were in 2003. a civil servant. by doing

covert work, having done official secrets work. but if you want to go into that work? when i graduated from university i was bilingual in mandarin chinese, i also had some japanese, and i was looking for work, but not, i didn't really want to go into the business world, it didn't appeal to me, the financial world didn't appeal to me, so after teaching english in japan world didn't appeal to me, so after teaching english injapan for two yea rs i teaching english injapan for two years i came back to the uk looking for some sort of work to get into and then i saw an advert in the guardian for mandarin speakers at gchq. and there was no description of the work stop was just simply a matter of they needed linguists in mandarin, arabic, and russian, for example stop and i thought, well, that sounds interesting. go and have an interview with them and i will apply. and when i got there i was sorta very proud —— pleasantly

survive —— surprised by the atmosphere in cheltenham. it was beautiful countryside. the people we re very beautiful countryside. the people were very friendly. so i thought it would be a great place to work. even what came soon after, i am just wondering whether you always wondering whether you always wondering that you might feel compromised by some of the work you are going to have to do. actually, no, i wasn't terribly worried about the work that we were doing. i mean, what i was doing in my section had nothing really to do with the iraq war. and i was, yeah, you know, i felt that we were doing what we had to do in order to facilitate the british government in doing itsjob, but all within legal means a. you mention the iraq war. and of course we're not talking the period in early 2003, the run—up to war where you were going into work every day, as you say it wasn't particularly the focus of your own operations, but nonetheless, were you a legal

person, had you develop your own feelings, before this incident, which we will talk about at length, had you become somebody who would be defined as anti—war, anti— the iraq war? i suppose i did start to read up war? i suppose i did start to read up about the issues before the iraq war began. when it was first mentioned in public, when a rocket came up in a debate on the wall in terra, i started thinking about its —— iraq. unlike many people —— unlike people i was surprised by iraq was coming up again. i didn't question some ice the afghanistan invasion, but at this point it seems why bring iraq into this? so i read up why bring iraq into this? so i read up on the issues. i ran around various different publishing houses andi various different publishing houses and i bought a couple of books and i really did try to dig neath the

surface on what was going on and i came to the conclusion that the war did not seem justified, that it was in fact, that there was no justification for it at all. and so when i saw the e—mail that was a red flag. let usjust, ifi may interrupt for a second, remind people of the e—mail. because what you saw and we came people of the e—mail. because what you saw and we came across your people of the e—mail. because what you saw and we came across your desk and many will colleagues people's desks, it was almost a circular, something that had been sent out to many people at gchq, it was an e—mailfrom a many people at gchq, it was an e—mail from a senior figure at the us national security agency by the name of franco ‘s. it outlined a request for information from people working in allied intelligence services, information that could be used as leverage on key diplomats sitting on the un security council who were about to vote, it was expected, on an iraq war security council resolution. and to quote

what he wanted, he said "i want the whole gamut of information that could give us policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to us goals". you found that deeply disturbing. i did. us goals". you found that deeply disturbing. idid. because there us goals". you found that deeply disturbing. i did. because there was an agenda there. the agenda was to go to warand an agenda there. the agenda was to go to war and the agenda was to get you when authorisation for war by any means necessary. and that was including the bribing and blackmailing of un diplomats. you feared, i mean he didn't ever come in his e—mail, talk about probing or indeed... but it is inferred. and it says domestic and office communications in the e—mail. and it targets those six swing nation sitting on the un security council at the time. here we get to this fateful decision that is at the centre of the movie, that has defined your life to a certain

extent, you decided, after serious, agonising thought, to leak this e—mail. you didn't deal with it internally, you didn't express grave concern to your superiors... no. you decided to leak it. why? well, the war was decided to leak it. why? well, the warwas imminent. by decided to leak it. why? well, the war was imminent. by any stretch of the imagination it appeared to be, you know, within a month or so of being launched. and going internally really doesn't appear to work. i mean, we have lots of examples from the us and the uk of officials taking things up internally and only to be told that they are under surveillance of themselves. let me quote you the words of sir david pepper, former boss of gchq. i'm not sure he was in charge at the time

you are... i think he was. he said he found what you did," profoundly shocking". he went on to say, "the thought that somebody out of our family, andi thought that somebody out of our family, and i don't think i use the term family lightly, when you have thousands of people working together it is like family, and you break that trust was truly shocking." he felt that you should have kept it in family. to a certain extent i can see his point of view. i did feel like i was letting down my colleagues. especially when i was walked out of the building and i knew i was a mandarin linguist and they had precious few mandarin linguist. however, the question is not about the cosiness of your family situation. if you see something that is illegal, immoral, and it is, you know, about a war thatis and it is, you know, about a war that is impending, it has not yet happened but it is about to happen and you see something that, potentially, can derail it or delay

i think it is your duty to act. i think it is your duty to expose that information to the public. you decided it was, in your words, immoral, unlawful... not only in my words. that's the point. you worked for the british government. you had signed the official secrets act. you had, ina signed the official secrets act. you had, in a sense, given your professional life to the witty state. yes. and you felt you had the right to make a highly individual assessment and decision, based on some knowledge, but of course you couldn't make everything... is it legal or not to spy on un diplomats? according to the un charter it is illegal. is it legal or is it not to lie to the people in order to get you when authorisation for war? these are key questions that need to be examined. they need to be a nswered be examined. they need to be answered properly. was that all was

that not an illegal operation? i believe it was because of the nature of what that e—mail expresses. believe it was because of the nature of what that e-mail expresses. let's continue the narrative, as the film does, through what happens next. within a month or so the observer newspaper splashed your leaked e—mail on its front page. it was a big story. you hadn't given it direct to the newspaper, but through a friend of a friend it got to the newspaper. and, of course, when you open that newspaper you got an enormous shock because he didn't know when it would be published. the hunt for the mole was on. let us just look, to give a sense of what it felt like, let's look at the moment, in the film, when the hunt for the mole is launched. 0k. someone in this building has betrayed their government and their country. now, i'm sure it wasn't anyone in this division, but starting today internal security will be conducting interviews with

each and every one of you. if you know anything or suspect anyone it is your sworn duty to speak up. if you do not and you are found to have withheld information of any kind you will be charged with a breach of the official secrets act. the there of keira knightley, playing you, katharine gun. when you watch it, and it is 16 years ago, does it take you back, does it stir something he knew? well, yes and no. i mean, she has such an expressive face. so i sort of identify with her rather than with myself. to be honest, if i had to do this ten years ago i wouldn't have been able to do it. there's been, you know, a degree of separation now, of time passed. and

a degree of maturity, i think, because i am 45 now and i have a child. so i think all of those things have worked... it makes it easier to talk about and be objective about in a sense. yes. let me ask you about the hunt. because in the film it is the moment when the gchq bosses bring in a hard—core investigator, but also lie detector tests, that's when you make the decision that you have to confess. partly because it's clear that you're very troubled by the impact this is having on yourfriends and collea g u es this is having on yourfriends and colleagues in the organisation. so was it partly fear that led to your confession? it's. .. i was it partly fear that led to your confession? it's... i suppose there was a degree of fear. there was a degree of fear that i would be found out before i confessed. and, of course, that looks worse. but also i felt that i couldn't carry on denying my involvement. you know, i didn't feel i could keep going into work attending that i had done nothing, that i was innocent, and

carry on as usual. so i felt i had to own up to it and be accountable for my actions. let us watch one more clip from the film. this, i think, is one of the most important moments because it gets to the heart of your motivation. it's you being interrogated by a detective who is determined to get to the truth, but also to try to put upon you motivation for what you done. you work for the british government etiquette no, not really. no? iwork for the british people. i other intelligence so the government can protect the british people. i do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the british people. extraordinary clarity there and obviously movies with prescription they do bring out the

clarity. but in the wake of what we have just seen, i want to quote to you the words of a commentator in the times newspaper who, after the movie was announced, i don't know if she has seen it yet but she said that katharine dunn wanted to stop the war because she disagreed with it and thought it was based on lights to —— lies. but an unelected official has no right to decide that herjudgement of the national interest supersedes that of the national government. what do you make of that point? i don't think she had seen the film at that stage when she wrote the article. i find that kind of mentality very hard to understand because we all remember the nuremberg trials. and i think the nuremberg trials. and i think the trouble with that interpretation is that we have to take everything

at face value and expect that at all times our elected representatives are acting in our public interest. in fact, i would argue that the invasion of iraq was not in the public interest. in fact, our own secret service released information before the war began that it would actually increase the risk of terrorism in this country. so i think that arguments is something that i do not agree with, obviously, because of my actions but i would also argue that i only released one piece of information about that specific operation i felt strongly about because it was a legal operation in an illegal war. about because it was a legal operation in an illegalwar. but i am struck by the sense that thinking back to how you were in 2003, you

we re back to how you were in 2003, you were in your 20s, a young professional woman at the beginning of her career. it must have been an immense weight, unimaginable pressure upon you to think of you saying to yourself i am seeing something here that is so unconscionable and alex at double that i am going to have to break my oath, i will have to arguably break the law and certainly bring all sorts of things crashing down upon my own head to do what i think is right. how much pressure was that? finally and this may be hard for people to believe, but i didn't think about those issues. the only thing i could see was an impending war. it was like i had tunnel vision, a blinkered horse. i did not think about anything else and all i wa nted think about anything else and all i wanted was to release this information anonymously so i was hoping i wouldn't be discovered. release it anonymously, try and put

a stop to this horrendous war before it starts and then just go back into anonymity or remain anonymous. that is what i hope for. as the story unfolded and in the end you were charged under the official secrets act and it took months for the government to build a case in your lawyers had a counter argument because they felt they could challenge the notion that you contravene the officials secrets act if they could prove the war was illegal and to do that they needed documents from the government including the controversial legal advice, to lots of it, that they received in the run—up to war. which had yet to be leaked and was secret. so when it comes to trial, there you are in court expecting the trial to begin and the government suddenly declares it is not presenting evidence, in essence dropping the

case against you. was a little bit of you that, by that time, wanted the court fight, wanted to try and expose what you felt was the illegality behind it? more than a little bit i would say. obviously i was hugely relieved. it would have been an awful invasion of privacy having a huge political trial in the 0ld having a huge political trial in the old bailey. but on the other hand, i did feel that we had a real chance to tackle many issues and the legal tea m to tackle many issues and the legal team were fired up. there was a precedent that we could potentially set, we could put the iraq war on trial. that is what you wanted to do. guess. and we wanted to demand the attorney general ‘s legal advice. elizabeth grant has said herself that if she had to go to court on oath and swear on oath that there was a difference of opinion

she would do so because viewers may remember she resigned before the invasion of iraq. she was a senior legal officer in the government and she resigned over her grave concerns. principally because the attorney general ‘s advised if it from hers when he went to the us and came back with a different opinion. let me ask you, when you now look at the whole film today, do you, in any way, feel you should have done things friendly? are you absolutely convinced 16 years later that you got it right? —— have done things differently. all i got it right? —— have done things differently. alli might got it right? —— have done things differently. all i might have done differently. all i might have done differently which is what the journalist hope i would, the one who broke the story? , perhaps that i would have gone directly to them in stead because they wasted a lot of time trying to verify the number and ifi time trying to verify the number and

if i had come out earlier they maybe would have had time to champion the story and push it further into people ‘s consciousness. story and push it further into people '5 consciousness.” story and push it further into people 's consciousness. i ask the question because i wonder if you ever had an overwhelming sense of failure, as we havejust ever had an overwhelming sense of failure, as we have just discussed, your overwhelming feeling by the time it got to court was that you wa nted time it got to court was that you wanted to put the iraq war on trial but the erupt all —— war proceeded and with your leaking you did not succeed in changing the dynamic. bush and blair went to war without the resolution and we all know what happened since. so do you feel a sense of failure? i feel great sadness. i would sense of failure? i feel great sadness. iwould not sense of failure? i feel great sadness. i would not say failure. there may have been a point where i felt i had failed, especially on the actual day when the bombing began andi actual day when the bombing began and i watched it. on television. but ithink... and i watched it. on television. but i think... what i can console myself

with is that they never got justification for the war. they never got un authorisation. as soon as that leak became public knowledge, especially in places like chile, they absolutely flat out refused to co—operate with any further un authorisation is. so that sort of deprives them of the legal cover that they were so desperate to get. let me ask you about whistleblowing before we end. in a sense you have joined a long tradition of whistleblowing, people inside systems, usually governments, sometimes secret intelligence services, who have seen things they regard as beyond the pale and go public with it or reported. people like daniel ellsberg and the pentagon papers. he expressed his great admiration for you. and in recent times you have seen people from chelsea manning to edward snowden to the cia whistleblower who reported the recent donald trump

phone call with ukrainian president. you feel an affinity with these different forms of whistleblowing? obviously i feel they have gone through a lot and many have suffered more than i did. the real question should be is this system working properly? i mean, we have many honourable men and women. i have since come to realise and have been contacted since come to realise and have been co nta cted by since come to realise and have been contacted by people who have said that they have worked in institutions where they signed the secrets act and they have seen things they wish they had brought to the public notice. however, they a lwa ys the public notice. however, they always chose family and career before releasing information. why? the reason they don't want to bring forward information is perfectly understandable because they fear the official secrets act. it is draconian, there is no defence in that basically means anyone who has mind cannot, should not ever speak

anything about anything they see and thatis anything about anything they see and that is an absurd situation in a liberal democracy. a pleasure having you on hardtalk. thank you very much. hello. well, we've got some fine weather heading our way. wednesday's expected to be a sunny, fresh day, clean air coming off the atlantic. but in the short term we have the overnight rain, so actually, early in the morning would be cloudy, wet and quite windy as well. this is the big picture, the satellite, you can see, the weather front here approaching ireland earlier on moving into western parts of the uk, all linked to this big low pressure that's sitting out there in the atlantic. and this low pressure is actually

going to be right on top of us during the course of thursday, friday and saturday and sunday, and that means that the outlook is looking pretty showery and blustery. but in the short term, it's the weather front that's bringing the rainfall, also quite breezy conditions as well. this is the rain through the early hours of the morning, pretty much through the centre of the british isles. at times the rain will be heavy. not a particularly cold night, around 11 in the south, maybe eight degrees in the north. and that weather front will eventually reach eastern parts of the uk early in the morning, so you're most likely to catch the rainfall say from east anglia, lincolnshire, the north—east of england and eastern scotland early in the morning, and then it's out of the way in the afternoon. you can see it's clear with pleasant conditions on the way. a little on the nippy side in scotland and northern ireland, around 13 degrees, but the winds will be light, so i think not a bad day overall.

and with the fine end to wednesday on the way as well. this is thursday's weather map, so the big low pressure i showed you from earlier on edging closer. starting to roll into ireland, and the wind will be strong as well. a lot of isobars. early on wednesday there will be a lot of sunshine around, particularly across central and eastern areas, but particularly out towards the west, the winds will strengthen and the showers will rattle in. some will be heavy, so stay with the brolly. also hail and thunder is a possibility as well so it will feel chillier particularly across the western areas where the wind will strengthen. winds will then get stronger as we had through friday. the low pressure here has not moved an awful lot. with the showers churning around it, the overall weather pattern will not change. again, showers are expected, most frequent across western and southern areas, and around the south coast of england, winds could be in excess of 50 mph in gusts, so a blustery end to the week on the way. through the weekend the winds will ease but the showers will continue. i don't want to write the weekend off, because there will be sunshine

around as well. it'll be just changeable.

this is the briefing. i'm sally bundock. our top stories: the uk and the eu are to continue brexit negotiations, scrapping last night's deadline for a deal. number 10 says talks have been constructive. forced to abandon her big annual policy speech — hong kong's lawmakers turn on leader carrie lam. dutch scientists say they're within a decade of developing an artificial womb that could save the lives of premature babies. india's gaming boom. why many of the country's half a billion gamers are thinking about turning it into a profession.