Saudi Arabia appoints new Foreign Minister

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia has named Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud as the country's new Foreign Minister, replacing Ibrahim al-Assaf, who was appointed last December, media reports said.

Arab News reported of the appointment citing royal decrees published by Saudi Press Agency on Wednesday.

Prior to his appointment as Foreign Minister , Prince Faisal served as the Saudi Ambassador to Germany from March 2019.

Before that, he was an Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and senior adviser at the Saudi Embassy in Washington from 2017-2019.

He had also served in various capacity in both private and public sectors from 2001 to 2019, including as representative of Boeing Industrial Technology Group, vice chairman of and later as board chairman of Alsalam Aerospace Company and from 2001-2013.

He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Military Industries Corporation and chairman of the Executive Committee in 2017.

Amongst the other decrees, Saleh Mohammed Al-Othaim was appointed deputy head of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority, whilst Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi was appointed head of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority.

Tariq Abdullah Al-Sheddi was appointed head of the National Data Management Office, and Essam Abdullah Al-Waqit was appointed director of the National Information Centre.

These appointments come after Saudi Arabia, in a surprise move last month, named Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the son of King Salman and also an older half-brother to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the Kingdom's new Energy Minister.