Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah issued on Sunday an Emiri decree ordering a cabinet reshuffle affecting eight ministerial posts, most notably the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Information.
Under the decree, Osama Khaled Abdullah Boodai was appointed Minister of Commerce and Industry; Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah as Minister of Foreign Affairs; Abdullah Subaih Abdullah Buftain as Minister of Information and Culture; and Yaqoub Al-Sayyed Yousef Al-Sayyed Hashem Al-Refae as Minister of Finance.
The decree also amended the appointment of Omar Saud Abdulaziz Al-Omar, naming him Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, and appointed four Ministers of State: Reem Ghazi Saud Al-Fulaij for Development and Sustainability; Tareq Hamad Nasser Al-Jalahma for Youth and Sports; and Abdulaziz Nasser Abdulaziz Al-Marzouq for Economic Affairs and Investment.
The newly appointed foreign minister, Sheikh Jarrah, was born on April 9, 1980. He had served as Deputy Foreign Minister with ministerial rank since June 2023. An Emiri decree issued in May 2023 appointed him Ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ General Diwan.
Sheikh Jarrah holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Delaware in the United States (2004). From 2020 to 2023, he worked in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the ministry’s General Diwan. He was also a member of Kuwait’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from 2017 to 2020.
Between 2014 and 2017, he served at Kuwait’s Embassy in Austria and the country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and international organizations in Vienna. From 2011 to 2014, he worked in the office of the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs at the General Diwan. He headed the Economic Department at the Diwan from 2005 to 2010 and worked in the International Organizations Department in 2005.
The new Minister of Information and Culture, Abdullah Buftain, is a well-known figure in Kuwaiti media circles. He served as deputy editor-in-chief of the English-language daily Kuwait Times, and has also worked in television as a presenter of political talk shows.
