Saudi's King Abdullah dies and King Salman succeeds his throne vowing to continue all current relations

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30945324

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/saudi-arabia-king-salman_n_6527914.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/22/middleeast/saudi-arabia-king-abdullah-dies/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/22/king-abdullah-dies-disrupting-saudi-arabia-at-a-sensitive-time/




Key Points from BBC:




His 79-year-old half-brother, Salman, has been confirmed as the new king.

Within hours of his accession to the throne of the oil-rich kingdom, King Salman vowed to maintain the same policies as his predecessors.

"We will continue adhering to the correct policies which Saudi Arabia has followed since its establishment," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.

Saudi Arabia under King Salman faces a number of challenges. The first is ensuring the succession passes smoothly without any divisive jockeying for power within the ruling family. Then there is the ongoing threat from jihadists, both at home and across its borders.

King Salman called on the royal family's Allegiance Council to recognise Muqrin as his heir.

US President Barack Obama expressed his personal sympathies, and those of the American people, on Abdullah's death.

"As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions. One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond," he said.

Key points from Huffington Post:

As king, Salman, 78, will have to navigate regional turmoil caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as a bitter rivalry with Shi'ite Muslim power Iran and a lingering threat from an al Qaeda wing in neighboring Yemen.

The defense portfolio involved running the kingdom's top-spending ministry, which used massive arms purchases to bolster ties with allies such as the United States, Britain and France.

"He's intelligent, political, in touch with the conservative base but also quite modern-minded," said a former diplomat in Riyadh interviewed about the kingdom's succession process.

He also argued against the introduction of democracy in the kingdom, citing regional and tribal divisions, and told the ambassador that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary for Middle East stability.

Jordan said Prince Salman had initially refused to believe Saudis participated in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but his attitude changed in the face of increasingly solid evidence that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

"He doesn't blindly accept everything the United States says, but at the same time he understands the importance of the relationship, which goes beyond oil," Jordan said.

Key Points from CNN:

"This is a sad day. The United States has lost a friend, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and the world has lost a revered leader," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. "He was so proud of the Kingdom's journey, a brave partner in fighting violent extremism who proved just as important as a proponent of peace."

In the context of the kingdom's conservative circles, Abdullah was seen as reformer and often came up against the more hard-line clerics.

Key Points from FP:

The king’s death comes at a delicate time for the oil-rich kingdom, which is struggling with the impact of plunging oil prices domestically, the rise of the Islamic State, and an Iran’s whose influence is growing across the Mideast as its proxies take on increasingly powerful roles in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Abdullah’s successor will also face an intensifying crisis in Yemen, whose Saudi-backed government has been effectively overthrown by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. A Saudi official said in a recent interview that Riyadh sees the future of Yemen as “an existential threat.”

Falling oil prices will present a pair of challenges to Salman. First, the kingdom has for decades effectively bought itself internal stability by putting in place a highly generous social welfare system that offers citizens free health care, education, and other perks. That will be more difficult to maintain with oil trading at its lowest price in decades.

Second, Saudi Arabia has used its oil to build one of the Middle East’s most powerful militaries by buying reams of advanced American weaponry and hiring thousands of American and Western troops to train its own forces. The kingdom has in recent years also massively ramped up its financial commitments to the rebels working to unseat Assad and to the new Egyptian government, which it sees as a bulwark against a return of the Islamists who controlled the country during the short reign of former President Mohamed Morsi.