TEHRAN -- Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Nasir Abdul Mohsen Abdullah to voice strong protest over a distortion of the name of the universally-recognized Persian Gulf at a biennial football competition currently underway in the Arab country’s southern port city of Basra.
Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said in a statement that the Iraqi diplomat was called in and reminded about the sensitivity of the Iranian nation to the misnomer.
“Even though we enjoy strategic, fraternal and deep relations with Iraq, we have vehemently expressed our objection to the matter, summoned the Iraqi ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, and the sensitivity of the great Iranian nation to the use of the precise word was communicated to the Iraqi side,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
The top Iranian diplomat said Tehran’s protest has been explicitly conveyed to Iraqi officials, and Prime Minister Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani corrected the misnomer in a post recently published online.
Speaking to German media, Sudani described relations between Iran and Iraq as historical and based on cultural, religious and social commonalities.
He said Iran has supported Iraq since the 2003 political developments in the country and helped it defeat Daesh.
Tehran and Baghdad, he said, have positive relations within the framework of no interference in each other’s internal affairs.
The spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani said on Monday that Tehran has expressed its objection to Baghdad over using the fake misnomer to refer to the Persian Gulf.
Several international scientific conferences have been held in recent years to discuss the historical roots of the Persian Gulf.
Researchers from the most reputable academic centers worldwide are almost unanimous in their opinions that the body of water has been referred to as the Persian Gulf throughout history.
Some regional countries and Western publications, however, continue to distort historical facts by omitting “Persian” from the full name or using a misnomer.