DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Kuwait‘s ruling emir, the 86-year-old Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah, died Saturday after a three-year, low-key reign focused on trying to resolve the tiny, oil-rich nation’s inside political disputes.
Kuwait state tv broke into programming with Quranic verses simply earlier than a somber official made the announcement.
“With great sadness and sorrow, we – the Kuwaiti people, the Arab and Islamic nations, and the friendly peoples of the world – mourn the late His Highness the emir, Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, who passed away to his Lord today,” mentioned Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al Sabah, the minister of his emiri courtroom, who learn the temporary assertion.
Authorities gave no reason for dying.
Kuwait‘s deputy ruler and his half-brother, Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber, now 83, is believed to be the world’s oldest crown prince. He is in line to take over as Kuwait’s ruler and represents one of many Gulf Arab international locations’ final octogenarian leaders.
In late November, Sheikh Nawaf was rushed to a hospital for an unspecified sickness. In the time since, Kuwait had been ready for information about his well being. State-run information beforehand reported that he traveled to the United States for unspecified medical checks in March 2021.
The well being of Kuwait’s leaders stays a delicate matter within the Middle Eastern nation additionally bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which has seen inside energy struggles behind palace doorways.
Those from Sheikh Nawaf‘s lifetime, born before oil fully transformed Kuwait from a trading hub into a petrostate, have been fading away with age. That, as well as other Gulf Arab nations putting younger and more assertive rulers in power, has increasingly put more pressure on the Al Sabah to pass power onto the next generation.
In neighboring Saudi Arabia, King Salman, 87, is widely believed to have placed day-to-day rule of his nation in the hands of his 38-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Sheikh Nawaf was sworn in as emir in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, following the death of his predecessor, the late Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. The breadth and depth of emotion over the loss of Sheikh Sabah, known for his diplomacy and peacemaking, was felt across the region.
Sheikh Nawaf previously served as Kuwait’s inside and protection minister. His political fortunes had been by no means sure regardless of being a part of the ruling Al Sabah household. As protection minister, Sheikh Nawaf oversaw the fast collapse of his forces throughout Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of his nation in August 1990. He confronted widespread criticism for his selections throughout the warfare.
A letter reportedly despatched to the nation’s ruler on the time alleged Sheikh Nawaf ordered tank crews to not fireplace on the approaching Iraqi forces. The reasoning behind the alleged order stays unclear. Iraq’s battle-hardened forces, after years at warfare with Iran, simply overwhelmed the nation.
A U.S.-led, multinational pressure later expelled the Iraqis from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. The Al Sabah by no means printed the findings of its investigations into the federal government’s actions across the invasion.
“Our main target is the liberation. After we return, we will repair our own house,” Sheikh Nawaf mentioned in 1991. “You have to reform yourself and correct any previous mistakes.”
He confronted a demotion after which didn’t maintain a Cabinet-level place for a few decade afterward, serving as a deputy chief of the nation’s National Guard. Even on his return, analysts seen him as not significantly lively in authorities, although his low-key method later appealed to some Kuwaitis who finally moved on from his wartime efficiency.
Sheikh Nawaf was largely an uncontroversial selection for emir, although his advancing age led analysts to counsel his tenure could be quick. It was – he had the third-shortest tenure of any emir for the reason that Al Sabah dominated Kuwait starting in 1752.
During his time period, he had been centered on home points because the nation struggled by way of political disputes – together with the overhaul of Kuwait’s welfare system – which prevented the sheikhdom from taking up debt. That’s left it with little in its coffers to pay bloated public sector salaries, regardless of producing immense wealth from its oil reserves.
In 2021, Sheikh Nawaf issued a long-awaited amnesty decree, pardoning and decreasing the sentences of almost three dozen Kuwaiti dissidents in a transfer geared toward defusing a serious authorities standoff. He issued one other simply earlier than his sickness, aiming to resolve that political deadlock that additionally noticed Kuwait maintain three separate parliamentary elections below his rule.
“He earned his title – he has a nickname here, they call him ‘the emir of pardons,’” mentioned Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of historical past at Kuwait University. “No one in modern Kuwaiti history has gone this far to reach out to the other side, to open up.”
Kuwait is perceived as having the Gulf’s freest parliament that comparatively permits for dissent.
Meanwhile, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, together with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, restored ties after years of a boycott of Doha, easing regional tensions and permitting Sheikh Nawaf to concentrate on points at dwelling.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak supplied his condolences.
“His Highness was a great friend of the U.K. and we will remember fondly all he did for our bilateral relationship and his work to promote stability in the Middle East,” Sunak mentioned in a press release launched by his workplace.
Kuwait, a nation dwelling to some 4.2 million individuals which is barely smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey, has the world’s sixth-largest recognized oil reserves.
It has been a staunch U.S. ally for the reason that 1991 Gulf War. Kuwait hosts some 13,500 American troops within the nation, in addition to the ahead headquarters of the U.S. Army within the Middle East.
