TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has banned the sale of National Geographic Society publications to protest the use of the term "Arabian Gulf" alongside "Persian Gulf" in its new world atlas, an Iranian official said Tuesday.
| My my, touchy, ain't they? |
Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, an official at Iran's Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, told The Associated Press that the atlas 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.
National Geographic's chief cartographer, Allen Carroll, defended the atlas, which was released in October. "We do, and will continue, to recognize '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."
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-categorize 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 (in parenthesis) next to the Persian Gulf," Khoshvaght told The Associated Press.
He said the ban includes all magazines published by the National Geographic Society, which publishes five different magazines and has many subscribers in Iran. |