President Trump has changed the name of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Gulf prior to a trip to the middle -east next week, a movement that Iran and his people fondled.
“I will have to make a decision,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t know if feelings will be injured.”
The past week, The Associated Press has reported That Mr Trump intended to announce the renamation on his tour of various Arab countries, who have been lobbying for years for change.
The turquoise blue water has been called the Persian Gulf for at least 550 BC, when the Persian dynasty of Cyrus the Great ruled a rich that rich in India to the edges of Western Europe. Old Persia is now modern Iran, and the entire southern coast extends along the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s governments, which went back to the pre-revolutionary age of the Shah, have defended strong Persian Gulf as the only legitimate name. This also applies to Iranians inside and outside the country, who consider the name as a nuclear part of their national and cultural identity.
By suggesting the name change, Mr. Trump apparently did the impossible: Unite Iranians of all political, ideological and religious factions. They have expressed themselves in statements and social media messages and convicted Mr. Trump.
Can Trump really rename the Golf?
Mr. Trump has the power to order changes in geographical names as they are used in the United States. But other countries do not have to honor those changes.
This year he gave an executive order to update the information system of the geographical names of the government to change all references The Gulf of Mexico On the Gulf of America. (On Friday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said the Mexican government Goose About his decision to adhere to the command of Mr Trump.)
The American board on geographical names Currently, the use of the Persian Gulf requires official American companies.
Worldwide, the international hydrographic organization works on standardizing and mapping marine boundaries. But the organization told the New York Times this year That there was “no formal international agreement or protocol for naming maritime areas.”
How did Iranians respond?
Mr. Trump’s idea gave conviction of a broad cross -section of Iranians, who are often divided on many subjects.
“It goes beyond politics; it goes beyond religious division and ideologies it is about the nation and its history, and it has reached an agreement,” said historian Touraj Daryaee, director of the Center for Persian studies at the University of California-Irvine. “Does Trump want to negotiate with Iran or does he want to take away his national identity?”
Mr Daryaee said that since ancient times Iranians have referred to their nation as’ Ab O Khakh,“ Which means “water and earth”. Two water bodies – the Persian Gulf in the south and the Caspian Sea in the north – are deeply intertwined in the Iranian psyche as symbols of Nation.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a prominent analyst in Tehran, Posted on X“Just because of the wishes and grilling of Trump, the Gulf of Mexico will not become the Gulf of America, Canada will not become a member of the United States, Greenland will not be possession of the United States, and the Persian Gulf will not assume a fake name.”
Iran’s national football team weighed with a map of the Persian Gulf and a trending hashtag #forversiangulf on The official Instagram page.
Even Iranian opposition figures expressed their displeasure.
Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran who supports Mr. Trump and encouraged him to leave diplomacy with the government in Tehran, said on social media“The decision of President Trump to distort history, if true, is an insult to the Iranian people and our great civilization.”
What is the history of the Persian Gulf?
The name of the Persian Gulf has been used throughout history, in maps, documents and diplomacy, from the time of the old Persians, whose empire dominated the region, to the Greeks and the British.
The urge to name it, the Arabian Golf collected steam during the Pan Arab nationalist movement of the late 1950s.
The United Nations use the term the Persian Gulf. A 2006 paper by a UN working group Found unanimity in historical documents on the term, of which it was conceived by the Persian king DariUSH in the fifth century BC
Does this affect the nuclear conversations of Iran-us?
Iran and the United States have held three negotiating rounds, mediated by Oman, about the advancing nuclear program of Iran, and they are planned to meet again on Sunday.
The United States wants to prevent Iran from being killed his nuclear program and Iran wants to remove sanctions that have been bumped into its economy.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian senior diplomat and member of the Nuclear Negotiation Team of the Land in 2015, said that if Mr. Trump renamed the Persian Gulf, this would yield a blow to the negotiations.
“It will just create distrust and encourage the hard liners in Iran who say you can’t trust America,” said Mr. Mousavian in an interview.
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