The UK’s Queen has cancelled a tour of the Gulf due to start at the end of March because of an overburdened work schedule, it was reported on Saturday.
The Queen’s annual spring tour was meant to be a five-day state visit to the region with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, and would have included visits to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, according to UK daily The Times.
However, the trip has had to be put off because of a state visit to Britain by President Calderón of Mexico — who arrives three days after the Queen was due to return from the Middle East.
The annual G20 gathering in London the same week, which will be the new US President Obama’s first trip to the UK, had also put a strain on the Queen’s diary, according to Buckingham Palace.
It is the first time in recent memory that a state visit has been cancelled for reasons other than war or terrorism, The Times said.
“We’ve never had a G20 summit in the middle of a state visit before. We just could not deliver both. We would be involved in G20 – there are 20 delegations, and we would be involved in hosting. It is a huge logistical ask,” the Palace said.
The cancellation will have involved months of preparatory work involving Palace officials, local embassy staff and royalty protection squad officers go to waste.
In the weeks before such a trip every destination incuding cultural sites, museums and mosques have to be checked for security by the Queen’s police bodyguards.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai are not thought to pose security concerns and there is speculation that the visit has been cancelled due to concerns over the health of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who is 87.
“It does not stack up to me. These things are very carefully constructed. There would be a huge amount of unwinding to do. Plans would have been quite far advanced already,” a former senior insider said.
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