Official Muscat is pursuing course of diplomatic neutrality in line with Sultan Qaboos’ axiom: “A friend to all, an enemy to none.”
Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Oman, has been a “thorn in Washington’s side” for some time. Perhaps, starting with al-Busaidi’s decision to fly to the US capital without prior notice, immediately after the US-Iran round of negotiations at the Sultanate ambassador’s residence in Switzerland on February 27th to meet with JD Vance, the US vice president. (https://wanaen.com/oman-fms-unannounced-washington-visit-focuses-on-iran-talks/).
By the way, it was the day before the start of the armed conflict between Israel and the USA against Iran.
“A peace deal is within reach… if we just give diplomacy the space it needs to get there. If the ultimate goal is to make sure Iran can’t have a nuclear bomb forever, I think we’ve solved that problem through these negotiations by agreeing to a very important breakthrough that has never been made before,” Al Busaidi said in an interview with CBS News in Washington. (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/28/peace-within-reach-as-iran-agrees-no-nuclear-material-stockpile-oman-fm)
Shortly after the conflict in the Persian Gulf began, Al Busaidi believed that the US “has lost control of its foreign policy, entering a war that is not its own” (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260319-oman-fm-us-has-lost-control-of-foreign-policy-entered-war-that-is-not-its-own/).
Then, at the end of June, al-Busaidi lamented that Oman and its neighbours in the Gulf had engaged in “a war that should never have happened”. (https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2026/06/29/ormuz-oman-et-ses-voisins-du-golfe-emergent-d-une-guerre-qui-n-aurait-jamais-du-avoir-lieu_6716898_3210.html?).
These days, the head of Oman’s diplomacy called on all the countries on the shores of the Persian Gulf to shift their diplomatic focus towards the future.
But how do you get to the future, in a region where these days there is more and more shooting, and where the other day the Iranians also targeted the military stations of Oman – neighbour on the opposite side of the Strait of Hormuz? (https://iranwire.com/en/news/155076-irgc-strikes-targets-in-oman-blasting-key-mediators-territory/).
Here too, Oman adheres to the legendary diplomatic neutrality established by Sultan Qaboos ibn Said el Said (1940-2020).
“A friend to all, an enemy to none”—was the axiom of Sultan Qaboos.
From that angle, one could understand today’s announcement by “Oman Air”—that from September, it is introducing a twice-weekly direct airline—Moscow—Salalah (on the photo) , a mega-port in the south of Oman, otherwise the birthplace of Sultan Qaboos, and the address of one of the active US military bases in the Sultanate. (https://www.muscatdaily.com/2026/07/18/salalah-to-welcome-new-flights-from-russia-kazakhstan/).
