Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been invited to join King Charles III in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan next week, the mayor’s office confirmed on Friday. He does not plan to meet privately with the king.
The ceremony, set to include other local officials and members of the British royal family, will kick off King Charles’s visit to New York City on Wednesday, part of his four-day royal visit to the United States to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from Britain.
A spokesman for the mayor did not confirm whether he had accepted the invitation to the wreath-laying ceremony. King Charles is also expected to meet with families of Sept. 11 victims in honor of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The mayor’s possible joint appearance with King Charles would have some political dissonance.
Mr. Mamdani is the city’s first modern mayor to be wholly identified with democratic socialism, and he has sought to cast his mayoralty as one focused on the needs of the working class.
He grew up with a father, Mahmood Mamdani, whose work as an academic focused on “colonialism, anti-colonialism and decolonisation.”
The king was born in Buckingham Palace, and he is the leader of a monarchy that was at one point the world’s largest colonial power.
Just last month, during remarks given on St. Patrick’s Day, Mr. Mamdani praised Ireland’s resistance to British rule.
“As we know, it was on Irish soil that the British Empire developed their colonial project,” the mayor said. “And yet when I think of the Irish, I do not think first of oppression; I think of resistance.”
But the mayor has also shown a facility for finding common ground with leaders of starkly different political brands. Since he was elected mayor in November, Mr. Mamdani has twice held friendly meetings with President Trump, whom he has repeatedly called “a fascist.”
After King Charles visits the Sept. 11 memorial, he will head north to Harlem. There, he is scheduled to meet with an organization that offers after-school urban farming programs to children and young people affected by food insecurities before meeting with business and financial leaders.
King Charles is scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., later on Wednesday.
Michael D. Shear and Liam Stack contributed reporting.
Claire Fahy reports on New York City and the surrounding area for The Times.
The post King Charles’s Visit Will Not Include Private Meeting With Mamdani appeared first on New York Times.
