'Saudi king's imminent return unlikely'

Fri Jan 7, 2011 10:25AM
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Announcements that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is ready to return to his kingdom only seek to allay domestic fears over the monarch's failing health, says an expert.


'The government officials have been trying to give positive signs. And this is something that they do to alleviate fears and suspicions,” Ali al-Ahmed, director of IGA, Washington told Press TV in an interview on Thursday.

King Abdullah's daughter has also said that her father's health is improving and that he will soon return from the United States.

“The fact is that the King will be here in the United States for a longer time than people said. This type of surgery requires, for somebody at his age, at least between six months to a year of recuperation, so even if he is leaving New York, he will not be going back to Saudi Arabia,” al-Ahmad said.

“We know that his palace in Morocco has been ready, and his staff that will take care of him is about to go to Morocco. But that was put on hold, so, his health is still not getting better unlike what his daughter said yesterday,” added the expert.

The Saudi king headed to the United States to undergo medical treatment on a herniated disc in his back last November. Abdullah first underwent a successful operation on November 24.

He had a follow-up back surgery on December 3 to stabilize several vertebrae in his spinal column.

The King handed over power to Crown Prince Sultan, when he travelled to the US. He returned from his overseas residence in Morocco to stand in for King Abdullah in his absence.

The 85-year-old Sultan has his own health problems. He had surgery in New York in 2009 for an undisclosed illness.

The monarch's ill health has raised concerns about the future of the world's biggest oil exporter, where the royal succession is a highly sensitive subject of debate.