Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will visit Bahrain later this year despite growing concerns about a crackdown on human rights in the small Gulf kingdom.
Clarence House said on Tuesday that Charles would visit in November on behalf of the British government and was aimed at strengthening the UK’s “warm bilateral relations with key partners in the region”.
The UK has long had close ties with Bahrain, which hosts a British military base and buys millions of dollars of British arms every year.
The two royal families are also said to have close personal ties, with King Hamad notably sitting next to the queen during her 90th birthday celebrations earlier this year.
But the close ties have come under growing criticism since 2011 when Arab Spring-inspired protests in the kingdom were brutally crushed and many activists and political opponents imprisoned.
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