Iran has banned the sale of National Geographic Society publications to protest against the use of the term ”Arabian Gulf” alongside ”Persian Gulf” in its new world atlas, an Iranian official said on Tuesday.
Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, an official at Iran’s Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, said the atlas, which was released in October, also must be corrected to remove a reference that says Iran has ”occupied” several Gulf islands.
Both Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim over the Gulf islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs.
Identification of the Gulf region and various parts within it has long been a sensitive topic for Iran, which says the area has been historically known as the Persian Gulf, but believes that since the 1950s, pan-Arabists led by late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and followed by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have tried to re-categorise it as the ”Arabian Gulf.”
”Both the distribution of the (National Geographic) publications and the activities of its journalists are banned until the publication corrects the atlas that used the phrase of the Arabian Gulf next to the Persian Gulf,” Khoshvaght told
reporters.
He said the ban includes all five magazines published by the National Geographic Society, which has many subscribers in Iran.
Khoshvaght said the atlas also incorrectly identifies some Iranian islands with Arabic names, not their names in Persian or Farsi, Iran’s predominant language.
National Geographic’s chief cartographer, Allen Carroll, defended the atlas.
”We do, and will continue, to recognise ‘Persian Gulf’ as the primary name,” Carroll said on the publication’s web site. ”But we want people searching for ‘Arabian Gulf’ to be able to find what they’re looking for and not to confuse it with the nearby Arabian Sea.”
On Monday, Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said changing ”historical names was a dangerous violation of geographical borders and works counter to the stability of the region.” – Sapa-AP