Queen to pay state visit

Queen Elizabeth will pay a state visit to Malta ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting due to start on November 25.

British High Commissioner Vincent Fean yesterday presented President Eddie Fenech Adami with a letter from the Queen accepting the President's invitation for such a visit.

The Queen said she and Prince Philip looked forward to extending their deep friendships in Malta and were most grateful for the President's kind offer of hospitality "for which Malta is rightly famous".

The Queen and Prince Philip will arrive in Malta on November 23. On November 25, the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, will open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), chaired by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.

After their CHOGM engagements, the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will leave on November 26.

The Queen and Prince Philip last visited Malta in May 1992 when Her Majesty inaugurated the Siege Bell Memorial, commemorating the award of the George Cross to Malta by her father, King George VI, in April 1942.

Malta is the only country where Her Majesty and His Royal Highness have lived, other than the United Kingdom. Prince Philip served in Malta with the Royal Navy between 1949 and 1951, during which time the Queen (she was then Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh) visited several times, the longest visit being from November 1950 to February 1951.

They returned to the island in 1954, 1967 and 1992. The Duke of Edinburgh last visited Malta in 2001.