Prince Saud Al Faisal

40 Years is his record tenure as Saudi foreign minister

The world’s longest serving foreign minister, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Saud Al Faisal, was replaced yesterday after 40 years representing the country.

Although foreign policy in the monarchy is ultimately determined by the king, Prince Saud played an important role in shaping the country’s response to the many crises affecting the Middle East.

Prince Saud was appointed in October 1975 and his tenure included Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and 2006, the Palestinian intifadas that erupted in 1987 and 2000, Iraq invading Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, and a US-led coalition’s occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Prince Saud, a son of King Faisal, was born in 1940 in the mountain city of Taif near Makkah where, in 1989, he helped Saudi Arabia negotiate the agreement that ended Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

A degree at Princeton in the 1960s was followed by years at the Petroleum Ministry, where he was taken under the wing of his father’s political alter ego, the charismatic oil minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani.

His career as a diplomat began with trauma: the new King Khalid named him as foreign minister because of the death of Prince Saud’s father Faisal, who had retained the foreign affairs portfolio after being made king in 1962.

When he was appointed in March 1975, the region was dominated by Cold War rivalries and secular, pan-Arab nationalism seemed to carry the promise of the future.

Riyadh’s relationship with Saddam Hussain, which went from wary support during the Iran-Iraq war to fierce enmity after the invasion of Kuwait, dominated long periods of Saudi foreign policy during Prince Saud’s tenure. However, despite that history, Prince Saud publicly argued against the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.