LONDON: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan faced fresh criticism on Tuesday in the wake an emergency royal summit to discuss their shock withdrawal from frontline royal duties.
British newspapers raked over Monday’s meeting at which Queen Elizabeth II agreed to allow them to split their time between Canada and the UK.
“It means only one thing — Harry and Meghan have won!” royal commentator Philip Dampier wrote in the Daily Express. “They metaphorically held a gun to her head and she has given in.”
The Sun tabloid’s editorial said: “Our Queen’s surrender to the petulant, selfish demands of Harry and Meghan may prove the biggest mistake of her reign.
“This couple have simply raised the bar for self-obsessed, arrogant entitlement.”
The Daily Mirror said the monarch “displayed a selflessness sadly lacking from the way Harry and Meghan have disrespectfully treated her.”
The Daily Telegraph called the decision “The Queen’s reluctant farewell.”
But final decisions on the couple’s future will be thrashed out in the coming days.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told BBC television he was “absolutely confident that they are going to sort this out.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced last week they were stepping back as senior royals and wanted financial independence from the monarchy.
The pair, with baby Archie, have grown increasingly unhappy over life in the public eye.
Queen Elizabeth, 93, summoned her eldest son and heir Prince Charles, and his two sons Princes William and Harry to her Sandringham estate in eastern England on Monday.
Meghan went back in Canada after briefly returning to Britain last week.
In a rare personal statement, the monarch said the discussions were “very constructive” but admitted the Sussexes’ decision was not what she would have wanted.
“My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life,” she said.
“Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working members of the royal family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.”
The queen said the Sussexes made clear they did not want to be reliant on public funds, while a “period of transition” had been agreed in which they will spend time in Canada and Britain.
“These are complex matters for my family to resolve, and there is some more work to be done, but I have asked for final decisions to be reached in the coming days,” the sovereign said.
Harry, 35, is sixth in line to the throne behind 71-year-old Charles, William, 37, and his brother’s three young children.
Meghan, 38, an American who had forged her own television acting career, was seen as a breath of fresh air for the royal family when she married Harry at Windsor Castle in May 2018.
But in October last year the couple admitted to struggling with the spotlight following their wedding and Archie’s birth in May 2019.
They have lashed out at negative press coverage with Harry claiming British tabloids had mounted a “ruthless” and “malicious” attempt to vilify his wife.
Online and television debate has raged since Wednesday over whether tabloid coverage had been racist toward the duchess.
How the Sussexes will be funded is one of the key issues to resolve. Five percent of the couple’s income comes from public funds.
The rest comes from Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall hereditary private estate. It has officially reported assets worth £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion, 1.3 billion euros).
“What is appropriate for a semi-royal person to be doing? Should they be endorsing particular commercial products at the expense of other commercial products?,” asked royal biographer Robert Hardman.
“Is their first priority to their shareholders, their directors, or to the Queen?“
The British police meets the couple’s security costs.
Besides Britain, Queen Elizabeth is the head of state of Canada and 14 other countries.
The Canadian government has yet to decide whether it will assume the security costs when Harry and Meghan are in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.
Hardman said history showed the royal family “always bounces back.”
“It’s been going a thousand years, it’s tough, the monarch’s tough,” he told AFP. “It’s difficult times ahead but she’s seen and known worse.”
Harry, Meghan under fire after royal crisis summit
https://arab.news/2eq4k
Harry, Meghan under fire after royal crisis summit
- British newspapers raked over Monday’s meeting at which Queen Elizabeth II
- The Daily Telegraph called the decision “The Queen’s reluctant farewell”
Regime change in Tehran? Putin says Iran is consolidating around its leaders
- “We see that today in Iran, with all the complexity of the internal political processes taking place there...that there is a consolidation of society around the country’s political leadership,” Putin said
ST PETERSBURG, Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Iranian society was consolidating around the Islamic Republic’s leadership when asked by Reuters if he agreed with Israeli statements about possible regime change in Tehran.
Putin was speaking as Trump kept the world guessing whether the US would join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear and missile sites and as residents of Iran’s capital streamed out of the city on the sixth day of the air assault.
Putin said all sides should look for ways to end hostilities in a way that ensured both Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power and Israel’s right to the unconditional security of the Jewish state.
Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks that regime change in Iran could be the result of Israel’s military attacks and US President Donald Trump’s demand for Iran’s unconditional surrender, Putin said that one should always look at whether or not the main aim was being achieved before starting something.
“We see that today in Iran, with all the complexity of the internal political processes taking place there...that there is a consolidation of society around the country’s political leadership,” Putin told senior news agency editors in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg.
Putin said he had personally been in touch with Trump and with Netanyahu, and that he had conveyed Moscow’s ideas on resolving the conflict.
He said Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities were still intact.
“These underground factories, they exist, nothing has happened to them,” Putin said, adding that all sides should seek a resolution that ensured the interests of both Iran and Israel.
“It seems to me that it would be right for everyone to look for ways to end hostilities and find ways for all parties to this conflict to come to an agreement with each other,” Putin said. “In my opinion, in general, such a solution can be found.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday
that Moscow was telling the United States not to strike Iran because it would radically destabilize the Middle East.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry also warned that Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclar facilities risked triggering a nuclear catastrophe.
US starts evacuating some diplomats from its embassy in Israel as Iran conflict intensifies
- Those warnings have increased as the conflict has intensified, with the embassy in Jerusalem authorizing the departure of nonessential staff and families over the weekend
WASHINGTON: The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the US embassy in Israel as hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify and President Donald Trump warns of the possibility of getting directly involved in the conflict.
A government plane evacuated a number of diplomats and family members who had asked to leave the country Wednesday, two US officials said. That came shortly before US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on X that the embassy was making plans for evacuation flights and ships for private American citizens.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic movements.
“Given the ongoing situation and as part of the embassy’s authorized departure status, mission personnel have begun departing Israel through a variety of means,” the State Department said.
“Authorized departure” means that nonessential staff and the families of all personnel are eligible to leave at government expense.
There was no indication of how many diplomats and family members departed on the flight or how many may have left by land routes to Jordan or Egypt.
The evacuations, comments from the White House and shifting of American military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East have heightened the possibility of deepening US involvement in a conflict that threatens to spill into a wider regional war.
Trump has issued increasingly pointed warnings about the US joining Israel in striking at Iran’s nuclear program, saying Wednesday that he doesn’t want to carry out a US strike on the Islamic Republic but suggesting he is ready to act if it’s necessary.
The State Department also has steadily ramped up its warnings to American citizens in Israel and throughout the region, including in Iraq.
Last week, ahead of Israel’s first strikes on Iran, the department and the Pentagon put out notices announcing that the US embassy in Baghdad had ordered all nonessential personnel to leave and that the Defense Department had “authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the Middle East.
Those warnings have increased as the conflict has intensified, with the embassy in Jerusalem authorizing the departure of nonessential staff and families over the weekend and ordering remaining personnel to shelter in place until further notice.
The embassy has been closed since Monday and will remain shut through Friday.
Iran says committed to diplomacy but acts in ‘self-defense’ against Israel
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday his country has remained committed to “diplomacy” but will continue to act in “self-defense” following Israel’s surprise attack nearly a week ago.
“Iran solely acts in self-defense. Even in the face of the most outrageous aggression against our people, Iran has so far only retaliated against the Israeli regime and not those who are aiding and abetting it,” said Araghchi in a post on X.
“With the exception of the illegitimate, genocidal and occupying Israeli regime, we remain committed to diplomacy,” he added.
Putin says NATO rearmament not a ‘threat’ to Russia
- “We will counter all threats that arise. There is no doubt about that,” Putin said
- The military alliance is pushing members to increase their defense spending to five percent of GDP
SAINT PETERSBURG: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that NATO’s push to ramp up defense spending was not a “threat” to Russia, as Moscow had all the weapons it needed to defend itself.
The military alliance is pushing members to increase their defense spending to five percent of GDP, under pressure from US President Donald Trump.
“We do not consider any rearmament by NATO to be a threat to the Russian Federation, because we are self-sufficient in terms of ensuring our own security,” Putin told reporters, including AFP, at a televised press conference in Saint Petersburg.
He added that Russia was “constantly modernizing our armed forces and defensive capabilities.”
Though he conceded higher spending by NATO would create some “specific” challenges for Russia, the Kremlin leader said it makes “no sense” for NATO members themselves.
“We will counter all threats that arise. There is no doubt about that,” he said.
Putin has cast his offensive in Ukraine as part of a wider conflict between Russia and NATO.
Kyiv is seeking security guarantees from NATO as part of any deal to end the fighting, more than three years after Russia ordered its full-scale military offensive.
Trump rebuffs Putin offer to mediate Iran-Israel truce
- “He actually offered to help mediate. I said, ‘Do me a favor, mediate your own’,” Trump said
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump appeared Wednesday to rebuff Vladimir Putin’s offer to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict, saying the Russian president should end his own war in Ukraine first.
“I spoke to him yesterday and... he actually offered to help mediate, I said ‘do me a favor, mediate your own,’” Trump told reporters as he unveiled a giant new flag pole at the White House.
“Let’s mediate Russia first, okay? I said, Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first, you can worry about this later.”
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disputed the timing that Trump gave for the call.
“He (Trump) was speaking figuratively. Life is so eventful right now that looking back a few days is like looking back to yesterday,” Peskov told Russian state news agency TASS.
Trump and the Kremlin both previously said on Saturday that the two leaders had spoken that day, with the US president saying Putin had called to wish him a happy 79th birthday.
Later on Wednesday, Trump said a change in Iran’s government “could happen,” and also indicated that negotiations could be on the horizon, without giving details.
“They want to meet, they want to come to the White House — I may do that,” Trump told reporters.
Trump meanwhile insisted that the stalled peace talks to end the Ukraine war were “going to work out” despite Moscow stepping up attacks.
The US president had vowed to end the war within 24 hours of taking office and made a major pivot toward Putin, but talks have so far made little progress.
Trump described the Ukraine war, sparked by Russia’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbor in 2022, as “so stupid.”
