By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

     

As usual, yesterday on April 30 the Islamic Republic marked the National Persian Gulf Day preceded by a week of celebrations on the significance of this vital waterway accompanied by messages of peace and friendship from Iranian officials of the importance of cooperation among all littoral states which benefit from its rich natural resources. 

As a matter of fact, the identity of Iran and the seven Arab countries with shorelines on its southern rim depends on the Persian Gulf and its abundance of hydrocarbon reserves.

Thus, convergence amongst littoral states is necessary for ensuring the safety and security of the Persian Gulf from predators as well as from environmental disasters in view of the massive supply of crude oil and petrochemical products to world countries through the narrow passage of the Hormuz Strait of Hormuz that connects this waterway to the high seas.

This means, the Persian Gulf and the adjoining lands do not need the presence of any outside military forces, especially the buccaneering Americans who have set up bases in and around it in order to destabilize the region and create differences amongst the littoral states.

In other words, the US should be asked to withdraw its CENTCOM terrorists from the region, if it doesn’t want to be kicked out violently from the Persian Gulf as was the case of the Portuguese predators four centuries ago in 1622 on April 30.

This is the date of the final victory of Safavid Iran in the crucial “Battle of Ormuz” when the Hormuz Strait was cleared for good from the occupation of the Portuguese, who earlier in 1615 were expelled from Bandar Abbas and before that were driven out from Bahrain by Iran’s famous statesman and general, Imam Qoli Khan.

The Yankees should study history and also learn from Britain’s eventual exit last century from the Persian Gulf after years of causing dissension and looting its resources.

Hope there are still some saner minds left in Washington which should stop its suicidal threats to Iran and end its seditious instigations to some ignorant elements in Arab countries who are trying to tamper with the millennia old geographical term “Persian Gulf”.

As our southern neighbours are well aware, since time immemorial their fathers, forefathers, ancestors, and progenitors have called the waterway separating the two geographical landmasses of the Iranian Plateau and the Arabian Peninsula “Persian Gulf”.

As books and documents testify, historians from the time of the Greek Herodotus, geographers from the era of Egypt’s Ptolemy, and famous seafarers such as the Spanish Arab al-Idrisi have used the term “Persian Gulf” or “Khalij al-Farsi”.

It were these undeniable facts that made WIPO, the intellectual property agency of the UN, to issue a statement in October 2018, certifying that as per international law based on the Lisbon Agreement, no country, government, or organization can use any another name, except “Persian” for the famous pearls harvested anywhere in the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf.