al-Bayan: News on resignation of the Kuwaiti crown prince next week

The United Arab Emirates UAE al-Bayan daily quoted on Friday members of the ruling family in Kuwait as saying that the Kuwaiti crown prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Sabah will resign his post when he comes back from London next week.

It was decided that Sheikh Saad ( 76 year old) will succeed his cousin, the ruler of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah ( 77 year old), whose sickness prevented him from practicing his work in current years.

Al-Bayan quoted sources in the Kuwaiti ruling family that the son of the crown prince Sheikh Fahd Saad al-Abdullah made contacts from London in which he said that his father will announce giving up his post after his return back from his medical trip from London next Wednesday. Members in the ruling family quoted Sheikh Fahd as saying that "when my father end medical checks he is currently making, he will make this very step for the stability of Kuwait."

Kuwaiti sources said that the mechanism the crown prince will implement states announcing his resignation before the ruler of the country and senior members of the ruling family in the presence of the chairman of the Ummah council Jasem al-Khurafi and heads of the former the Ummah council parliament, because this is the first unprecedented incident in which the crown prince gives up the rule in Kuwait after independence.

With the sickness of the ruler of Kuwait and the crown prince, pressure increased on the ruling family recently in order to explain who will assume the rule then. However, the crisis became open after the "chief" of the ruling family Sheikh Salem al-Ali al-Sabah called for a team leadership, while light is shed on likely vacuum in authority.

The paper quoted Kuwait sources as saying that the best way for solution is resignation, adding that the Kuwaitis prefer not to use the law of inheritance in the Emirate in ending the crisis "in order to preserve the position of Sheikh Saad, who is greatly popular among the Kuwaitis."

Sheikh Jaber issued statements in which he promised to settle matters in the interest of Kuwait. It is most likely that Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, half brother for the ruler of Kuwait, who has been running daily matters in Kuwait since four years, will become a crown prince.