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King Salman, Saudi king: Relieving former FM Prince
Saud Al Faisal was 'difficult'
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Former Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal
died on Thursday, Saudi Arabian sources and media close to the kingdom's ruling
family reported, two months after he was replaced following four decades in the
job.
Prince Saud, who was 75, was the world's
longest-serving foreign minister when replaced on April 29 by Adel al-Jubeir,
the then-ambassador to Washington. The Al-Arabiya channel, which is close to
King Salman's branch of the ruling family, confirmed the news.
Reuters report continues:
Prince Saud retained an influential position in
Saudi foreign policy circles even after his replacement, serving as an official
adviser to King Salman, who took power in January, and was sometimes present
when foreign leaders met the monarch.
In Washington, President Barack Obama expressed
his deep condolences on Prince Saud's death.
"As the world's longest-serving foreign
minister, Prince Saud witnessed some of the most challenging periods in the
region. At each turn, he advanced the goals of peace, whether negotiating the
end to Lebanon's civil war or helping to launch the Arab Peace
Initiative," Obama said in a statement.
Even before the 2011 "Arab Spring,"
when Saudi Arabia faced unprecedented tumult throughout the Middle East, Prince
Saud was a significant player in regional diplomacy, a landscape that had
changed radically since he was appointed in October 1975.
Egypt and Israel had not yet made peace, Yasser
Arafat led the Palestine Liberation Organization from shell-pocked refugee
camps in Lebanon, Iran's shah ruled from his Peacock Throne, and in Iraq, a
young Saddam Hussein was plotting his path to power.
Prince Saud's tenure covered Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978, 1982
and 2006, the Palestinian intifadas that erupted in 1987 and 2000, Iraq's
invasion of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, and a U.S.-led coalition's
occupation of Iraq in 2003.
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