THE British Embassy in Kuwait celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on Tuesday evening at the British Embassy grounds. The reception was attended by the guest of honour Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Sheikh Talal Khaled Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. The following is an interview with the British Ambassador to the State of Kuwait Belinda Lewis:

Can you tell us more about the Queen Birthday Party and what are we celebrating this year in terms of the platinum jubilee?

The platinum Jubilee is unique in British history, Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth the second is the first and the only monarch who rein for 70 years and I think when you look back to some photographs that we are displaying at the party this evening, it reminds us of all the different changes that the UK has gone through, the different changes in society and changes in our place in the world but one thing that has always been solid and steady and a long-standing is our friendship with Kuwait, one of our oldest Allies and it is really exciting looking forward to the next 70 years and beyond and all the different challenges and opportunities and ways that we can continue to work in partnership with each other.

Today, we have the deputy prime minister and minister of defence as the guest of honour, can you tell us more about this experience, have you met the minister before?

Well, it was a real pleasure to meet His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and to have him as our guest of honour. I really appreciate the minister taking the time of his very busy schedule to come and join us this evening, it really did put the icing on the cake. And we were able to celebrate the close ties that the UK and Kuwait enjoy in terms of defence, whether that it’s defence education, the staff colleague in Kuwait or all of the service people from Kuwait come to the UK to study, the joined exercises that we have, defence engagement, defence trade. It’s a really important part of our relationship with Kuwait.

During the speech, you mentioned that we still flying the Ukrainian flag at the British Embassy, tell us more about that?

It is very important that people remember as time goes on, the continued suffering as a result of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. It’s also very important that we don’t forget about the humanitarian impact of other conflicts that are still ongoing, I mentioned Syria and Yemen and Afghanistan in my speech but there are many other communities right across the world who are impacted by war, by conflicts and are caught up in issues that are nothing to do with them, I think the human cost of war is very hard to ever try to justify, but the important thing is to focus on a way out of that way beyond to conflict, and I do hope that looking to the future the talks in Turkey will produce some results.

Do you have any final words you would like to add?

Well happy birthday to Her Majesty the Queen, I think she has done a remarkable job. She has dedicated her whole life to serving her country and I think, this is a great opportunity just to take a moment to reflect and celebrate that lifetime of service.