President Trump has floated changing the name of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Gulf ahead of a trip to the Middle East next week, a move that infuriated Iran and its people.
“I’ll have to make a decision,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I don’t know if feelings are going to be hurt.”
This past week, The Associated Press reported that Mr. Trump planned to announce the renaming on his tour of several Arab countries, which have been lobbying for the change for years.
The turquoise blue water has been called the Persian Gulf since at least 550 B.C., when the Persian dynasty of Cyrus the Great ruled an empire that spanned from India to the edges of western Europe. Ancient Persia is now modern-day Iran, and its entire southern coast stretches along the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s governments, going back to the pre-revolution era of the shah, have stoutly defended Persian Gulf as the only legitimate name. So have Iranians inside and outside the country, who view the name as a core part of their national and cultural identity.
By suggesting the name change, Mr. Trump has seemingly done the impossible: Unite Iranians of all political, ideological and religious factions. They have spoken out in statements and social media posts, condemning Mr. Trump’s idea.
Can Trump really rename the Gulf?
Mr. Trump has the power to order changes to geographical names as they are used in the United States. But other countries do not have to honor those changes.
This year, he issued an executive order to update the government’s Geographic Names Information System in order to change all references for the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. (On Friday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said the Mexican government had sued Google over its decision to abide by Mr. Trump’s order.)
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names currently mandates use of the Persian Gulf for official U.S. business.
Globally, the International Hydrographic Organization works to standardize and chart marine boundaries. But the organization told The New York Times this year that there was “no formal international agreement or protocol in place for naming maritime areas.”
How have Iranians reacted?
Mr. Trump’s idea drew condemnation from a broad cross-section of Iranians, who are often divided on many topics.
“It goes beyond politics; it goes beyond religious divisions and ideologies — it’s about the nation and its history, and it has hit a chord,” said the 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 its 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 bodies of water — the Persian Gulf in the south and the Caspian Sea to the north — are deeply intertwined in the Iranian psyche as symbols of nationhood.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a prominent analyst in Tehran, posted on X, “Just because of Trump’s wishes and whims, the Gulf of Mexico will not become the Gulf of America, Canada will not join the United States, Greenland will not become a possession of the United States, and the Persian Gulf will not take on a fake name.”
Iran’s national soccer team weighed in with a map of the Persian Gulf and a trending hashtag #ForeverPersianGulf on its official Instagram page.
Even Iranian opposition figures expressed their displeasure.
Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah of Iran who supports Mr. Trump and encouraged him to abandon diplomacy with the government in Tehran, said on social media, “President Trump’s reported decision to distort history, if true, is an insult to the Iranian people and our great civilization.”
What’s the history of the Persian Gulf?
The Persian Gulf name has been used throughout history, in maps, documents and diplomacy, from the time of the ancient Persians, whose empire dominated the region, to the Greeks and the British.
The push to call it the Arabian Gulf gathered steam during the Pan-Arab nationalist movement of the late 1950s.
The United Nations uses the term the Persian Gulf. A 2006 paper by a U.N. working group found unanimity in historical documents on the term, which it said was coined by the Persian king Darioush in the fifth century B.C.
Will this affect the Iran-U.S. nuclear talks?
Iran and the United States have held three rounds of negotiations, mediated by Oman, on Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and they are scheduled to meet again on Sunday.
The United States wants to prevent Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program, and Iran wants to remove sanctions that have hobbled its economy.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian senior diplomat and member of the country’s nuclear negotiating team in 2015, said if Mr. Trump renamed the Persian Gulf, it would deliver a blow to the negotiations.
“It will just create mistrust and embolden the hard-liners in Iran who say you can’t trust America,” Mr. Mousavian said in an interview.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization, and also covers Iran and the shadow war between Iran and Israel. She is based in New York.
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