The Secretariat[edit]
The
United Nations Secretariat on many occasions has requested its staff to use only "Persian Gulf" as the standard geographical designation for that body of water. The UN Secretariat issued editorial directives in 1994 and 1999 stating that only the term "Persian Gulf" should be used in UN documents.
[25][26][27]
Group of Experts on Geographical Names[edit]
The group of experts on Geographical Names was set up by the secretary-general of the United Nations in pursuance of economic and Social council resolution 715A(XXVII) on 23 April 1959 and has endorsed 'Persian Gulf' as the official name for this body of water.
[28]
The group discussed the naming issue during its 23rd session, held in Vienna from 28 March to 4 April 2006. According to the report of the meeting, the Convenor "noted that countries could not be prohibited from using or creating exonyms."
[29]
The use of the name "Arabian Gulf" was described to be "faulty" by the Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, Berlin, 27 August September 2002.
[30]
International Hydrographic Organization[edit]
UN.DESA.PERSIAN GULF
A 2001 official letter from British Foreign Ministry noting their opinion of "Persian Gulf" as the correct name.
The
International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), an international body for provision of hydrographic information for world-wide marine navigation and other purposes, uses the name "Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf)" for this body of water. This is outlined in reference S-23 (Limits of Oceans and Seas), section 41.
[31]
United Kingdom[edit]
The United Kingdom government's
Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN) has endorsed the term 'The Persian Gulf' as the correct term for the body of water.
[32][33] Sir Richard Dalton: "Undoubtedly, the correct geographical term in history is the Persian Gulf."
[34]
United States[edit]
In the
United States, Persian Gulf has been the label sanctioned for U.S. Government use
[35] since a decision by the
State Department's
Board of Geographical Names in 1917:
[36] As recognized by the United States Board on Geographic names, the name of the body of water that lies between Iran and the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council is the Persian Gulf. For political reasons, Arabs often refer to it as the Arab or Arabian Gulf. The NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS), maintained by the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, is the "official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names" sanctioned by the Board of Geographical Names.
[37] The GNS lists "Persian Gulf" as the only "conventional" name, along with fourteen unofficial "variants" in different languages, such as "Gulf of Iran", "Gulf of Ajam", "Gulf of Basra", "Arabian Gulf", "Persian-Arabian Gulf", "Gulf of Fars", and "Farsi Gulf".
[38]
Since about 2009, due to increased cooperation with Arab
states of the Persian Gulf, various branches of the
U.S. armed forces have issued directives to their members to use the "Arabian Gulf" when operating in the area ("Persian Gulf" is still used in official publications and websites), partially to follow local conventions, or simply to follow local laws that ban the use of "Persian Gulf", e.g. in the
United Arab Emirates.
[39] For similar reasons branches of American universities in the region have dropped references to "Persian Gulf" in their teaching materials.[
citation needed]
Atlas and other media[edit]
The
National Geographic Society uses the name Persian Gulf to refer to this body of water. In 2004, the society published a new edition of its
National Geographic Atlas of the World using the term "Arabian Gulf" as an alternative name (in smaller type and in parentheses) for "Persian Gulf". This resulted in heavy protests by many Iranians, especially the Internet user community and the Iranology Academy,
[40] which led to the Iranian government acting on the issue and banning the distribution of the society's publications in Iran. On 30 December 2004, the society reversed its decision and published an Atlas Update, removing the parenthetical reference and adding a note: "Historically and most commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is referred to by some as the Arabian Gulf."
[41]
The 2000
AP Stylebook elaborates: Persian Gulf is the "long-established name" and the best choice. "Some Arab nations call it the Arabian Gulf. Use Arabian Gulf only in direct quotations and explain in the text that the body of water is more commonly known as the Persian Gulf."
In 2004, the Persian Gulf-naming dispute was the subject of a
Google bomb by an Iranian
blogger named Pendar Yousefi.
[42][43][44] This was the combined efforts of hundreds of bloggers, webmasters and Persian forums who pointed links with the word Arabian Gulf to a spoof error page found at
this link.
[44]
Some atlases and media outlets have taken to referring to "The Gulf" without any adjectival qualification. This usage is followed by the
BBC and
The Times Atlas of the World. Iran does not consider this an impartial usage and views it as an active contribution to abandonment of the historical name. In June 2006, Iran banned the sale of
The Economist for the above reason, after a map in the magazine labeled the
Persian Gulf as "The Gulf".
[45] The magazine repeated this act in its 18 February 2010 article titled "Iraq, Iran and the Politics of Oil: Crude Diplomacy". It also used the name "Arabian Gulf" in the same article.
Google had previously put both Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf on its
Google Maps. After May 2012, it removed both names from the body of water stating that it does not name every place in the world and that it did not want to take a political stance. Iranians complained about the change and started a Twitter campaign asking "Where's the Persian Gulf?".
[46] Google Earth continues to show both names.
Sport[edit]
Islamic Solidarity Games[edit]
- A planned second Islamic Solidarity Games in Iran, originally scheduled to take place in October 2009, and later re-scheduled for April 2010, was canceled when the Arab World and Iran could not agree over the use of the term 'Persian Gulf' in logos and medals for the Games.[47][48]
Football[edit]
In
football, the top tier of the
Iranian football league system is named the
Persian Gulf Cup to promote the Persian naming.
[49] The
Iranian team does not take part in the
Gulf Cup of Nations for national teams surrounding the waters due to its name.
[50]
The top football league in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) was founded in 1973 as the UAE Football League. In 2007, the name was changed to UAE Pro League. Starting from the 2013–14 season the name was changed to
UAE Arabian Gulf League.
[51] The name change has been viewed as a revival of the Persian Gulf naming dispute
[52] with Iran accusing the United Arab Emirates of racism,
[53][54] and the
Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iranbarring the transfer of
Javad Nekounam to a UAE club.
[55]