05.51 EDT King Charles visits New York after Trump says UK monarch ‘agrees with me’ on Iran
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Britain’s King Charles will use a trip to New York today to showcase cultural and economic ties between the UK and the US at a time when the so-called “special relationship” is under strain.
It is the third day of a four-day state visit, clouded by tensions over the Iran war, that began in Washington with president Donald Trump greeting the monarch and his wife, Queen Camilla, AFP reported.
The New York leg will first see the royals take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the 9/11 memorial to mark 25 years since the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The city’s mayor Zohran Mamdani is not expected to meet Charles privately but will join him for the ceremony.
“This atrocity was a defining moment for America and your pain and shock were felt around the whole world,” Charles told the US Congress on Tuesday.
“We stood with you then. And we stand with you now in solemn remembrance of a day that shall never be forgotten,” he added in a speech that called for unity among western powers.
It comes as Trump said Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed nuclear weapons. The president’s comments are likely to cause some embarrassment to royal aides that his views have been made public.
Trump said in his speech at the white-tie event on Tuesday evening:
double quotation mark We’re doing a little Middle East work right now … and we’re doing very well. We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we’re never going to let that opponent ever, Charles agrees with me even more than I do, we’re never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon. They know that, and they’ve known it right now, very powerfully.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said:
double quotation mark The king is naturally mindful of his government’s longstanding and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.
In other developments: