The office
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Appointed on 23 October 2019, Faisal bin Farhan leads the Kingdom’s oldest ministry. This page explains the appointment, the institution, where the minister sits in the Saudi state — and what he does, and does not, decide alone.
1930Ministry established by royal order
6thPerson to hold the office
2019Appointed by King Salman
Appointment
On 23 October 2019 (24 Safar 1441 AH), a royal order of King Salman appointed Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Minister of Foreign Affairs. The same order relieved Dr Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al-Assaf, foreign minister since 27 December 2018, and named him a Minister of State and member of the Council of Ministers. Al Arabiya reported that the new minister was sworn in before the King on 29 October 2019.
He had been ambassador to Germany since February 2019. When the King reconstituted the Council of Ministers on 27 September 2022 — the order that appointed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Prime Minister — Faisal bin Farhan was retained as foreign minister, as Arab News reported the same day.
The ministry
The ministry grew out of the General Directorate of Foreign Affairs that King Abdulaziz established in Makkah in 1926. A royal order of 1930 converted it into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz — later King Faisal — as minister. Saudipedia describes it as the Kingdom’s oldest ministry and records that it began with no more than fifteen staff.
| Minister | Term | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz | 1930 – 1960 | First foreign minister; later King |
| Ibrahim Al-Suwaiyel | 1960 – 1962 | — |
| Faisal bin Abdulaziz | 1962 – 1975 | Second period; King from 1964 |
| Prince Saud Al-Faisal | 1975 – 2015 | Longest-serving |
| Adel al-Jubeir | 2015 – 2018 | Later Minister of State for Foreign Affairs |
| Dr Ibrahim Al-Assaf | 2018 – 2019 | Named Minister of State in 2019 |
| Prince Faisal bin Farhan | 2019 – present | Sixth person to hold the office |
How policy is made
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy in which foreign policy is set at the top of the state and conducted by several institutions. The diagram below shows the principal ones and gives, for each, an example drawn from the record of the past seven years.
Responsibilities in practice
The ministry does not publish a list of the minister’s duties. The record does, however, show the forms his work takes:
- Representing the King and Crown Prince
- Delivered the Kingdom’s address to the UN General Assembly each year from 2022 to 2025; headed the delegation to the G20 summits in Rio de Janeiro (2024) and Johannesburg (2025) and to the BRICS summits in Kazan (2024) and Rio de Janeiro (2025).
- Chairing
- The G20 foreign ministers’ extraordinary meeting (2020); the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting before the Jeddah summit (May 2023); the Arab-Islamic ministerial committee on Gaza (from November 2023).
- Co-chairing
- The UN conference on the two-state solution with France (2025); the Saudi–Turkish Coordination Council (2025, 2026); the India–Saudi ministerial committee of the Strategic Partnership Council (2022, 2024).
- Signing
- US$400 million in agreements with Ukraine (2023); the memoranda creating the Saudi–French Strategic Partnership Council and the Saudi–Brazilian Coordination Council (2024); the Board of Peace charter (January 2026); a Saudi–German strategic dialogue (September 2026).
- Convening and hosting
- The Riyadh meetings on Syria (January 2025); the first meeting of the Global Alliance for the Two-State Solution (October 2024); a consultative meeting of Arab and Islamic foreign ministers on Iranian attacks (March 2026).
Stated priorities
The following priorities are drawn from his own public statements, with the source for each. They describe what the minister has said, not a complete statement of Saudi policy.
- Palestinian statehood. In Riyadh on 8 June 2023 he said that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people … any normalization will have limited benefits” (US State Department transcript).
- Diplomacy over escalation. In New York on 26 September 2024: “I fail to understand how the continuation of war can be the only option” (Arab News).
- Multiple partnerships. “I don’t ascribe to this zero-sum game,” he said of relations with the US and China on 8 June 2023 (State Department transcript).
- Syria’s recovery. On 12 January 2025 he called for the lifting of “unilateral and international sanctions imposed on Syria” (Arab News).
- Mediation. At the UN General Assembly in September 2024: “We stand ready to continue our mediation efforts between the parties to the conflict” in Ukraine (UN News rendering).
Major developments, 2019–2026
| Year | Development | The minister’s documented role |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Saudi G20 presidency | RolePresided over the foreign ministers’ extraordinary meeting, 3 September |
| 2021 | End of the Qatar rift (AlUla Declaration) | RoleAnnounced the restoration of relations, 5 January |
| 2023 | Saudi–Iran relations restored | StateAgreement concluded by the National Security Adviser; the minister held the follow-up meetings in Beijing and Tehran |
| 2023 | Syria returns to the Arab League | RoleVisited Damascus, 18 April; chaired the Jeddah ministerial meeting, 17 May |
| 2023 | Sudan: Jeddah process | RoleDiplomatic contacts with the US and Sudan’s army leadership as talks opened |
| 2023–24 | War in Gaza | RoleChaired the Arab-Islamic ministerial committee; launched the Global Alliance |
| 2025 | UN conference on the two-state solution | RoleCo-chaired with France; New York Declaration endorsed by the General Assembly on 12 September |
| 2025 | US–Russia and US–Ukraine talks in the Kingdom | StateHosted at the Crown Prince’s direction; the minister attended as host |
| 2025 | Defence agreements with Pakistan and the US | StateSigned by the Crown Prince; no personal role documented for the minister |
| 2026 | Regional war and attacks on Saudi territory | RoleHosted Arab and Islamic ministers in Riyadh, March; talks in Europe, Russia and Asia |
What the office does not do alone
It would be inaccurate to credit the foreign minister personally with every Saudi foreign-policy decision. Several of the most important developments of his tenure — the Beijing agreement with Iran, the defence pacts of 2025, the Kingdom’s response to the 2026 attacks — were decided or concluded at the level of the King and the Crown Prince, or led by other officials. The minister’s contribution is best understood through what the record shows he did: the meetings he chaired, the visits he made, the texts he signed and the arguments he made in public.
See also Understanding the Role and Multilateral Diplomacy.
Sources & Further Reading
- MOFA minister’s biography (Arabic). mofa.gov.sa
- MOFA, “About the Ministry”. mofa.gov.sa
- Saudipedia, “Ministry of Foreign Affairs”. saudipedia.com
- Asharq Al-Awsat, royal decree of 23 October 2019. aawsat.com
- Arab News, cabinet of 27 September 2022. arabnews.com/node/2170636
- Carnegie Endowment, Crown Prince appointed Prime Minister, September 2022. carnegieendowment.org
- NYU GlobaLex, Saudi legal system (Council of Political and Security Affairs, 2015). nyulawglobal.org
- Al Arabiya, SCO dialogue-partner status, 29 March 2023. english.alarabiya.net
- Arab News, Adel al-Jubeir appointed Climate Envoy, 2022. arabnews.com
- USIP Iran Primer, Saudi–Iran talks in Baghdad, 2021. iranprimer.usip.org
- Sana’a Center, Houthi delegation in Riyadh, September 2023. sanaacenter.org
- US Department of State, joint press availability, Riyadh, 8 June 2023. state.gov
- UN News, general debate, 28 September 2024. news.un.org
- Arab News, Board of Peace charter, January 2026. arabnews.com