Royal tour: Prince William and Kate Middleton’s emotional moment remembering Diana
PRINCE WILLIAM and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, had an emotional moment on the third day of their royal tour in Pakistan.
Kate Middleton wears a traditional Chitrali hat in Pakistan
Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and her husband Prince William recently completed a jam-packed, “challenging” tour of Pakistan, which was a great success by all accounts. On the third day, the couple visited the Hindu Kush mountains before heading to the Chiatibo Glacier in Broghil National Park, and were met with an emotional reminder of the past.
The visit to the Hindu Kush mountains, in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is a particularly poignant one, as it retraced the steps of William’s late mother, Princess Diana.
Prince William was visibly moved when Himalayan dignitaries presented a book full of photographs of Diana on her 1991 visit to the country.
Receiving the gift, he said: “That’s very kind, thank you. Thank you very much.”
The Duke then began flicking through it, while Kate looked on, smiling.
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William then noticed he was wearing the same hat his mother had on in the pictures.
He exclaimed: “She is wearing the same hat! Fantastic.”
Princess Diana has been a constant presence on this trip.
On Tuesday, the couple met Prime Minister Imran Khan, who, along with his ex-wife Jemima, was a good friend of Diana’s.
Mr Khan, a former cricketer, recalled sweet memories of meeting William as a teenager.
He said he remembered how William and Diana laughed at a gathering in Richmond-upon-Thames in 1996 when Mr Khan said he wanted to get into politics, not realising the seriousness of his intentions.
Mr Khan, who was elected Pakistani Prime Minister in July 2018, suggested it had been as hard a slog as his earlier career as a Test cricketer.
He said: “When I went with my mother to see a Test match my cousin was playing and he scored a century and I told my mother I wanted to be a Test cricketer.
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“I never realised how difficult it was to eventually become one.
“Similarly, when I told you that I wanted to succeed I didn’t realise it would take me 22 years.”
This is a very important tour, both for the royal couple and the future of Pakistani-UK diplomacy.
Royal commentator Ingrid Steward said it demonstrates the Queen’s “terrific faith” in the couple to undertake such a “serious and politically sensitive” trip.
A statement from Kensington Palace ahead of the trip said: “This is the most complex tour undertaken by The Duke and Duchess to date, given the logistical and security considerations.”
These security considerations are largely down to the situation in Kashmir, a region which has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan for decades.
Kashmir is already one of the world’s most heavily militarised regions, and Pakistan’s tensions with its fellow nuclear-armed neighbour heightened in the summer when India imposed new restrictions in Kashmir.
Last month, Imran Khan told the United Nations that India’s actions could provoke war between the two nations.
He warned of “consequences far beyond the borders” if that happened between two countries with nuclear weapons.