Tehran, IRNA – A senior Iranian lawmaker stated on Wednesday that the southern Iranian strategic waterway has always been called “the Persian Gulf” and will remain so.
This is a historical truth well known by the Arab states, Shahriar Heydari said at the Majlis (Parliament) open session this morning.
The name the Persian Gulf has been registered even on the oldest maps, so if the Persian Gulf littoral states (Arab countries) study the historical maps and documents well, they will find the truth, the parliamentarian noted.
“The correct English name for this stretch of water is ‘The Persian Gulf’,” reads a confidential circular by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office which dates back to May 8, 1978.
As the lawmaker underlined, the library of Baghdad which is one of the most reliable ones among the Arabs has mentioned the correct name of the Persian Gulf in all its historical sources.
Historical texts and sources have never used the fake name for the Persian Gulf, he stressed.
Then, he advised the Arab states to not be affected by the US, the UK, and the Zionist regime of Israel and not follow policy on sowing discord in the region.
Certain Western countries, the US, and the Zionist regime have always been after creating friction between regional states and use of the forged name for the Iranian gateway is an example of Western’s plots.
Former US President Donald Trump, who withdrew unilaterally from the Iran Deal and imposed the highest level of sanctions against Iran in November 2018, distorted the name of the Persian Gulf at his October 2017 speech on his new strategy about Iran.
The confidential circular which was released by an Iranian envoy – Hamid Baeidinejad – in October 2017, just a few days after the speech, stresses that “Iranian sensitivity over the description of the Persian Gulf is undiminished.”
Also, the document reads, “The correct English name for this stretch of water is ‘The Persian Gulf.'”
“The use of any other term causes serious offence to the Iranians and has been known to prejudice contracts and negotiations in Iran.”
The circular further stresses the British officials ‘never’ use other terms in their official communications to refer to the strategic waterway which lies in the southwest of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz, the strategically and geographically important narrow strip in south of the country.
In a related development, the former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in response to Trump’s speech had said “’He’d better ask the helmsmen of the fleets sailing back and forth in the Persian Gulf what the name of the waterway is on the map they hold in hand.”
Rouhani also urged Trump to “carefully study history, geography, international commitments and norms, ethics, and decency”.
Source: Islamic Republic News Agency – IRNA
