FM Deputy: PG Is A Historical, Geographical Reality

Tehran, April 29, IRNA – Iran’s Foreign Ministry Deputy for Parliament and Consular Affairs Hassan Qashqavi said the “Persian Gulf” is a historical and geographical reality mentioned in countless documents including those possessed by Russia, Greece and Poland. In an exclusive interview with IRNA on Sunday, he said the gulf in south of Iran has been called the “Persian Gulf” since the very beginning of the history. He added that in the past six decades after the war between Arab states and the Zionist regime, some of these countries, due to their nationalist attitudes, started to use a forged name for the Persian Gulf instead of its real and authentic name. He noted that the Persian Gulf has been mentioned under this exact name not merely in Persian documents but also in several documents belonging to other countries like Poland, Russia and Greece. Qashqavi pointed out that the Polish foreign ministry has recently published a document which dates back to 1468 in which the (Persian) gulf is referred to as the “Persian Gulf”. In Russian documents, too, the water stretch is called “the Persian Sea”, he added. Stressing that in one of the oldest documents belonging to Greece the sea has been called “Sea of Persia”, Qashqavi noted that even in Arabic documents the sea is titled as “Khalij al-Farsi” which proves the name “Persian Gulf”. It is not exclusively used in Farsi language but is a definite historical and geographic reality, he reiterated. According to the Foreign Ministry official, there are 11 reliable documents in the United Nations which use the name “Persian Gulf”./end