"With deep sorrow and sadness ... King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness," the Saudi state press agency said.
Prince Sultan's funeral will be held on Tuesday, the statement said.
He was an "important and influential senior prince" who played a key role in relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council, particularly Yemen, said Hussein Shobokshi, a columnist for the Asharq Alawsat newspaper.
"He was always in favour of stability and has always been in touch with various sectors of Yemeni society, tribal, governmental, and he was keen on having ... a smooth political climate that does not affect the kingdom," Shobokshi said.
With Prince Sultan's death, his brother Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, the longtime minister of interior, becomes the most likely candidate to be next in line to rule after King Abdullah.
Analysts believed he had been suffering from a form of dementia, and a March 2009 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks said he was "for all intents and purposes incapacitated".
He received a diagnosis of colon cancer in 2004.
Prince Sultan was the seventh of the 36 sons of King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, who united and founded Saudi Arabia in 1932. He was a member of the "Sudairi Seven," the powerful alliance of seven surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz and one of his wives, Princess Hassa Al Sudairi.
The Sudairi Seven included the deceased former King Fahd. Prince Nayef, who may be next in line for rule, is also a member.
Prince Sultan served as defence minister for nearly 50 years, the longest term of any Saudi minister, and brought advanced military hardware to the kingdom from the United States and United Kingdom.
Among his sons are Prince Khalid, who has overseen fighting against Yemeni rebels and commanded Arab forces against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and Prince Bandar, who served as ambassador to the United States between 1983 and 2005.
A changing kingdom?
In 2006, the king formed an Allegiance Council meant to help oversee succession issues. The king has ultimate authority to choose the next crown prince and heir, and it remains unclear how exactly the council will interact with him.
Sultan, who was thought to be aged about 86, had been in the United States for medical treatment since June.
As well as heir to the throne of the world’s top oil exporter, he had been defence minister and minister of aviation for about four decades.
“With deep sorrow and sadness, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness,” said the statement carried on state news agency SPA and state television.
Sultan, who was thought to be aged about 86, had been in the United States for medical treatment since June. Reuters
Saudi television broke its schedules early on Saturday to broadcast Koranic verses accompanied by footage of the Kaaba in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.
Funeral services will be held in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday.
Widely thought to be next in line after Sultan is Interior Minister Prince Nayef, who was named second-deputy prime minister in 2009.
King Abdullah is in his late 80s and underwent back surgery earlier this month but has been pictured since then in apparently good health.
The king was absent for three months late in 2010 while he underwent treatment for a herniated disc that caused blood to accumulate around his spine.
Prince Nayef, who is in his late 70s, has a reputation as being more conservative than either the crown prince or king.
Unlike in European monarchies, the line of succession does not move directly from father to eldest son, but has moved down a line of brothers born to the kingdoms’s founder Ibn Saud, who died in 1953.
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