Saudi Crown Prince signs up to Twitter

Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, the Crown Prince and heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia, has attracted more than 230,000 followers on Twitter within four days of opening an account on the popular social media site.

The 77-year old Deputy Prime Minister made his first tweet on Saturday, writing in Arabic: “This is the official and single account of Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia”.

It immediately attracted attention and has since been retweeted more than 11,000 times.

He has not tweeted again and is yet to “follow” other Twitter users.

Thousands of Twitter users have already engaged with the Crown Prince in both English and Arabic, sending him questions and making comments, even calling him “so cool” for joining the micro-blogging website.

“@shorney714” posted: “are you going to read all the mentions?” and “will you update Jeddah and make it look like Dubai?”

The account is being managed by the Prince Salman Youth Centre, which has a link to the account on its website, according to English language newspaper Saudi Gazette.

Prince Salman is the current next in line to the throne of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf's most populous country and world's largest oil exporter, which has been held by King Abdullah since 2005.