Queen Elizabeth Opens Commonwealth Summit İn Malta

Queen Elizabeth II has opened what many have speculated will be her last meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Malta.



The biennial summit of leaders representing governments that were once part of the British Empire began in the island's capital Valletta on Friday for talks on climate change and global security issues.



U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said that the existing network between the Commonwealth's 53 member states provided it with a vital role tackling global terrorism.



"Its civil society and education networks make it particularly well placed to complement international efforts to build counter narratives to this poisonous extremist ideology," Cameron said.



"This is the struggle of our generation, but by working together we will defeat this extremism scourge that is a threat to us all," he said.



Queen Elizabeth, who is the head of the organization, said that she felt "enormously proud of what the Commonwealth has achieved, and all of it within my lifetime".



The organization was founded in 1949, three years before she became queen.



There was some press speculation that the summit, which is held once every two years, might be the last one attended by the 89-year-old monarch. She no longer takes long-haul flights and would not be able to travel to the summits planned in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu for 2017 and in Malaysia for 2019.



But Vanuatu was forced to pull out after it was struck by a tropical cyclone that devastated its infrastructure, raising the possibility of the queen taking part in a summit closer to home.



Queen Elizabeth's possible absence has raised the question of who will succeed her as head of the 53-country organization, a position that unlike the monarchy is not hereditary.



In what Friday's Daily Telegraph described as a "hint" for her views on the Commonwealth's future leadership, she praised her son Charles, the Prince of Wales, saying she could not wish "to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by the Prince of Wales who continues to give so much to it with great distinction". - Ankara