THE peoples of Pakistan and Oman share strong and intimate bonds of affinity and one saw its manifestation on Friday when vibrant Pakistani community hosted a mega star-studded Pakistan Festival in Muscat to mark Oman’s 49th Renaissance Day — the day when his Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said ascended to the throne ushering the Sultanate into an era of peace, development and prosperity.
The festival graced by His Highness Sayyid Faris Fatik Al Said as the chief guest and attended by renowned Pakistani artists, writers, anchor persons and intellectuals was indeed first of its kind organised to give a befitting tribute to great friend of Pakistan who has always shown extraordinary love and affection for Pakistani people and attached special importance to bilateral relationship with the country. His Majesty as well as others in Oman regards Pakistan as a trustworthy and hardworking nation. This affection and respect is very much mutual as people and leadership of Pakistan also hold His Majesty Sultan Qaboos in high esteem. Without any doubt, it is visionary and sagacious leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos that Oman has transformed into a modern and prosperous nation and set to achieve new milestones with long term development plan being envisaged under his Majesty to further augment the on-going phase of development and prosperity.
It indeed goes to his Majesty’s credit that he gave priority to development of Omani citizens and prepared successive generations of citizens of his homeland in all fields to carry out greater role in developing, guiding and steering programmes and plans for national development. The Sultanate is also fortunate enough to have brains like Adviser for Cultural Affairs Abdulaziz Bin Mohammad al Rawas and Information Minister Abdulmunim bin Mansour Bin Said al-Hasani who are playing great role in translating vision of Sultan Qaboos into reality and presenting a true and positive picture of Sultanate to the World. The people of Pakistan also greatly value and appreciate the forward march of Oman and they showed this through their animated participation in Pakistan Festival.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Oman Ali Javed who is coming back to the country after completing three-year tenure, also deserves applause for motivating the Pakistani community in the Sultanate to participate and engage in such activities that indeed will go a long way in further cementing the bonds of friendship between the two countries. We expect that all our envoys also pursue the footprints of Ali Javed to project a positive image of the country abroad. At the same time, it is important that Pakistan enhances engagements with friendly Oman at different levels in order to exploit true potential of cooperation in diverse fields.
