Islamic solidarity games cancelled for lack of solidarity 18, January 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.Tags: Arabian Gulf, Islamic Solidarity Games, Islamic Solidarity Games canceled, Persian Gulf, The Gulf
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Some time ago I wrote about the threat to the Islamic Solidarity Games being cancelled because of a disagreement between Arabs and Persians. The second Islamic Solidarity Games were due to be held in Iran in October 2009 but before issues of whether they were going to go ahead at all could be resolved, Swine Flu came to the rescue and forced planners to cancel the games. Iran was due to reprise (or prise?!) its role in April this year, but this time the Games have been canceled because of the dispute.
The key issue is over the medals and other promotional material being emblazoned with the phrase Persian Gulf. Despite the fact that Persian Gulf is the historical and contemporary legal name for the body of water, Arab states do not like it and prefer to call it the Arabian Gulf or just the Gulf.
The Gulf blog 
[…] the naming of this body of water. Indeed, ironically the Islamic Solidarity Games were recently cancelled because of arguments over just this issue. It is unlikely that this Ambassador’s comments will […]
[…] if I haven’t covered this enough recently x x x x, Iran is having another hissy-fit over the Arabian Gulf/Persian Gulf naming controversy. This […]