Iran shuts down Egypt’s stall at Tehran’s book fair for using Arabian Gulf name
Iran has shut down Egypt’s stall at Tehran’s international book fair for selling a book using the Arabian Gulf name.
“Police on patrol disguised as visitors stumbled upon a book entitled ‘Arabian Gulf Encyclopedia’, offered in the Egyptian pavilion at the Tehran International Book Fair,” Tehran Police Chief Hossein Sajedinia said, quoted by the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). “Consequently, the pavilion was shut down and police forces recovered the distributed copies of the book with the help of the book fair officials and judicial authorities,” he said on Friday.
Iranian daily Tehran Times reported that the book “promoted the false, misleading and recently-concocted name of Arabian Gulf,” and that the “correct, research-verified and historically documented name for the body of water is the Persian Gulf.”
The book fair was opened in Tehran on May 4 and is scheduled to end on May 15. According to the Iranian media, the fair had 980 foreign publishers from 90 countries.
Iran and its Arab neighbours have been at odds over the name of the body of water that separates them.
Most Arabs say that the correct name is the Arabian Gulf as its gentle waters lap off the shores of numerous Arab countries (the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Iraq) bedside Iran.
However, Iran insists that the “Persian Gulf” is the official and only name that should be used when referring to the Gulf waters lying between the Arabian Peninsula and the Iranian plateau.
Iran in 2004 reacted angrily to a map of the Gulf in an issue of National Geographic that printed the name “Arabian Gulf” next to “Persian Gulf” in reference to the body of water. Tehran said that it was banning the new edition of the atlas, as well as National Geographic journalists, until the map for the Gulf region was changed.
Last December Iran’s transportation minister said that all foreign aircraft not using the Persian Gulf in their monitors will not be allowed to fly to Iran.
However, his decision was blasted by Bahraini and Kuwaiti MPs as “politically-motivated.”
“We are sorry that the Iranians think in such terms and this shows some form of obstinacy,” MP for Bahrain’s A Asala parliamentary bloc Abdul Halim Murad said. “This is a political decision that should not be made,” said the lawmaker.
Kuwaiti Salafi lawmaker Waleed Al Tabtabai said that the name of the Gulf should not be an issue between Iran and the Arabs.
A bid in Iran in 2009 to host the Islamic Solidarity Games was defeated following a controversy with Arab countries over the name of the Gulf in the documents and medals.
Iran insisted on the Persian Gulf name, while Arab countries said that the Arabian Gulf appellation should be on the medals.
The games that would have included competitions between athletes from 57 countries were originally scheduled for October 2009, but have been postponed.
The Gulf has an area of 233,100 square kilometres and extends 970 kilometres from the Shatt al Arab delta to the Strait of Hormuz that links it with the Gulf of Oman.
