Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will travel to the U.K. to attend Monday's state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, but there are no plans for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to attend, a top government official said Wednesday.
The funeral is scheduled to be held at Westminster Abbey in central London following the 96-year-old monarch's death at her summer home in Scotland on Sept. 8.
“The British royal family and our imperial family enjoy a long and close relationship, one that stretches back three generations from the current emperor, to the emperor emeritus (former Emperor Akihito), to Emperor Showa,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a news conference, confirming the imperial couple’s attendance at the funeral. Emperor Hirohito is posthumously known as Emperor Showa.