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Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman:
Photo:
BERTRAND GUAY v AFP
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has appointed his son and heir Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the country's prime minister.
His second son, Prince Khalid, will become defense minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle, a royal decree said on Tuesday.
By appointing his son as his successor in the cabinet, the king is continuing the transfer of power in the country, Bloomberg news agency reported, citing the Saudi SPA.
The decree gave no reasons for the reorganization.
The king will continue to chair cabinet meetings.
The 86-year-old ruler officially took power in 2015.
He has been hospitalized several times over the past two years.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salma, known as MbS, was defense minister and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a key US ally in the Middle East, even before the cabinet reshuffle.
The appointment to defense minister is also a step up for his brother: Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of MbS, was previously deputy defense minister.
Hoping again after a long isolation
According to US intelligence services, Mohammed bin Salman is the suspected mastermind behind the assassination of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Relations between Saudi Arabia and western countries were extremely tense.
Khashoggi, who wrote a column for the Washington Post, was brutally killed by a hit squad in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in autumn 2018.
In the course of the energy crisis resulting from the Russian war of aggression, bin Salman visited Europe again after years of isolation.
There was also a meeting with US President Biden in Saudi Arabia.
Sol/Reuters
