National Post (National Edition)
Saudi king orders cabinet shuffle
Allies of crown prince given top jobs
ISTANBUL • Saudi Arabia replaced its foreign minister and shuffled other key government posts Thursday as its leaders continue to grapple with the backlash to the killing by Saudi agents of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The government overhaul, announced in a string of decrees by the Saudi leader, King Salman, elevated allies of the king’s son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to head a critical security agency and other posts, in moves seen as aiding the prince’s ongoing consolidation of power.
No women were named to senior cabinet positions.
Adel al-jubeir, a veteran diplomat who is well known in Washington and served as ambassador there for eight years before being appointed foreign minister in 2015, was replaced by Ibrahim al-assaf, a former finance minister, according to the decrees. Jubeir was named minister of state for foreign affairs, with responsibilities that remain unclear.
In the past few months, Jubeir had served as the public face of the kingdom’s laboured efforts to explain the death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist and critic of his country’s leadership who was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Saudi Arabia faced a torrent of criticism after denying any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate for weeks after his disappearance and then as graphic details about his killing emerged. Turkish officials said that a team of Saudi agents, acting on orders from high-ranking officials in the Saudi government, had been dispatched to Istanbul to carry out what Turkey said was a premeditated murder.
Khashoggi’s body, which was dismembered, according to Turkish and Saudi officials, has not been found. The Saudi government belatedly acknowledged the involvement of its operatives but insisted they had disobeyed instructions to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia alive.
Even as Saudi officials have insisted that Mohammed — the kingdom’s effective leader — knew nothing of the plot, the episode has led to greater scrutiny of his policies, including his decision to involve the Saudi military in a war in Yemen and his crackdown on domestic critics and rivals, including a group of prominent women’s rights activists.