“Whatever we do to protect Persian Gulf’s name is not enough,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior Aide to Iran’s Leader, on Sunday. He made the remarks at a ceremony to unveil an illustrated book of Persian Gulf’s history in Tehran.
“However, I have to say that this seditious change of name by a specific group is something temporary and finally the truth will be known to everybody,” asserted the head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Expediency Council.
“In the historic works left from ancient Greece, this body of water is named the Persian Gulf and in addition to that whoever wrote a book on the history or the geopolitics of this region has referred to this area as the Persian Gulf,” reiterated the Iranian former foreign minister.
“This is a seditious move to change the name of the Persian Gulf in the course of the time gradually and remove the Persian part of the name and call it the Gulf. In some international meetings some foreign diplomats refer to the Gulf and we ask them which gulf and they correct themselves and say the Persian Gulf,” he added.
“According to UN documents, this gulf has always been referred to as the Persian Gulf,” noted the Iranian official, “Why they are insisting on this name change? Because with changing the name they can move toward change of identity and sovereignty. This is an introduction to bring up some other baseless claims against Iran’s territorial integrity,” underlined Mr. Velayati.
“The coasts of Iran in the Persian Gulf are longer than the total of the 6 Arab countries’ coasts and they will never see their dream of changing the name of the Persian Gulf realized,” he articulated.
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