This archive report was first published on 23 October 2019.
On October 23, 2019, Saudi Arabia's King Salman made significant changes to his government, replacing Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf with Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
Al-Assaf, who had been serving as ambassador to Germany, will take on a new role as minister of state, a demotion from his previous position. He had been appointed as foreign minister in December 2018, just two months after the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.
Al-Assaf had previously been detained in 2017 in an anti-corruption sweep, but was released after being cleared of any wrongdoing. He went on to lead a government delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.
The replacement of al-Assaf comes as Saudi Arabia continues to deal with the aftermath of Khashoggi's killing, which has been widely seen as the kingdom's worst diplomatic crisis since the September 11 attacks.
Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, the new foreign minister, is a 45-year-old diplomat who served as a key advisor at the Saudi embassy in Washington during the time of Khashoggi's murder in October. He is expected to bring a new dynamic to the ministry, with strong ties to the West and a more European outlook than his predecessors.
"He is dynamic and proactive," said Cinzia Bianco, a Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "The ministry will likely be different than what we saw with Adel al-Jubeir and Ibrahim al-Assaf."
However, not everyone is convinced that the replacements are a significant change. "Al-Jubeir, the foreign minister previously, is still rather present in the foreign policy scene," said Elana DeLozier, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "In fact, he has remained more prominent in the media than Assaf."
Regional Tensions ¶
Meanwhile, Saudi King Salman has also replaced the transport minister, Nabil al-Amoudi, with Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, amidst a spike in tensions with its regional arch-rival Iran.
The kingdom has been navigating a series of challenges, including a bus collision that killed 35 foreign pilgrims near the Islamic holy city of Medina last week, and a spike in tensions with Iran, which has denied involvement in attacks on Saudi oil facilities last month.
