King's Pacific Tour Will Showcase 'best Of Australia And Samoa': Palace

London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2024) King Charles III will make a slimmed-down nine-day tour of Australia and Samoa in October, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday, in his first trip as monarch to a country where he is also head of state.

Next month's trip will be 75-year-old Charles's first royal tour since his cancer diagnosis was announced in February, and will see him and his wife Queen Camilla, 77, visit Sydney and Canberra.

He will then attend a Commonwealth summit in Samoa.

Charles made a day-long foreign trip in June -- attending D-Day commemorations in France -- and has been steadily increasing his engagements as his treatment progresses.

The Pacific trip -- which begins on October 18 -- will spotlight climate change, bushfires and groundbreaking skin cancer research, as well as sustainability and biodiversity.

Buckingham Palace said the engagements "will focus on themes designed to celebrate the best of Australia and Samoa, as well as reflecting aspects of the king and queen's work".

Charles, who became king on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, is Australia's head of state.

Samoa is part of the 56-nation Commonwealth, 14 of whose members also have Charles as head of state but where republican movements have grown in recent years calling for a severing of historical ties with the British monarchy.

The Pacific island state is hosting the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) -- Charles' first as king -- in late October.

The long-haul trip, which follows state visits last year by Charles and Camilla to Germany, France and Kenya, was first announced in July but without fixed dates or a detailed schedule.

Earlier plans to include a visit to New Zealand were scrapped in light of the king's cancer diagnosis, which led him to suspend public engagements between February and May.