Prime Minister Imran Khan has said he felt it was ‘important’ for Prince William to know how much her mother, Princes Diana, ‘was loved’ in Pakistan, according to CNN.
In an interview with CNN, Imran said that during the lunch meeting with the royal couple he wanted to ensure William understood the impact of his mother’s work in the country.
“I was telling Prince William that I was in the outbacks – my constituency, which is Mianwali… I was touring my constituency when I heard of the accident,” revealed PM Khan, referring to the 1997 Paris car crash in which Diana died.
“And I can tell you, that the impact it had on the people shocked me.”
He continued that he “wouldn’t have even thought they would have heard of Princess Di” and recalled his amazement that her work had penetrated “even in these rural constituencies.”
On recalling his experience with the Duke of Cambridge, he said: “[The] last time I met him he was a boy, along with Prince Harry, and they came with their mother to my ex-mother-in-law’s house.”
Imran also spoke about his ambition to be the PM, a goal he told the Prince about at their first meeting.
He said: “I’d just started my political party. Its 23-year since I started my political movement and I assumed that it would be very easy, here’s my party and I would go out and people would vote for me! Little did I realise what I would go through to get here!
I mean, God, it’s a lifetime, the struggle of becoming a prime minister in a country, where unfortunately I had to fight two mafias.”
The political parties were not headed by what would-be politicians, he said, “They were political mafias. The heads of both parties are now in jail! It was a very difficult fight.”
The royal couple was in Pakistan on a five-day visit where they met the head of states and visited Lahore, Chitral, and Islamabad.