William stands in for Prince Philip as Queen meets Aung San Suu Kyi
Written by News on 06/05/2017
The Queen was joined by Prince William as she welcomed Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to the UK.
The meeting was the first time the Queen has hosted a foreign dignitary at Buckingham Palace since her husband Prince Philip announced his retirement from public life.
The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall also held talks with Ms Suu Kyi, who is in Europe for a series of meetings, at nearby Clarence House.
Details of the discussions were not released – but they took place amid ongoing controversy over Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim population and Ms Suu Kyi’s silence over their plight.
The democracy campaigner took power in April 2016 as part of a transition from military rule.
But her first year in power has been marred by ethnic and religious tensions and a conflict that has seen an estimated 75,000 Rohingya forced to flee the country amid a military crackdown.
Two of Prince Charles’ organisations, the Prince’s Foundation For Building Community and Turquoise Mountain – which works to preserve traditional arts – are both working in Myanmar, while the Prince has an interest in Islam and promoting interfaith dialogue.
Ms Suu Kyi has been criticised for not speaking out against what has been described as ethnic cleansing of the Muslim community.
But she has strongly denied this and in a recent interview said people have claimed she has said nothing on this issue "simply because I didn’t make the kind of statements which I should make, which is to condemn one community or the other".
Charles knew Ms Suu Kyi’s late husband Michael Aris, a Tibetan scholar, who was without his wife when she was under house arrest for almost 20 years in Myanmar during her fight to end military rule in her country.
Mr Aris died of prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 53. He had asked the Myanmar authorities to grant him a visa to visit her one last time, but was refused.
The year the scholar died, Charles became patron of the Michael Aris Memorial Trust for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies.
(c) Sky News 2017: William stands in for Prince Philip as Queen meets Aung San Suu Kyi
