Talk:Persian Gulf naming dispute

Viewpoint of third parties-united nations

in aritcle:

The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names discussed the naming issue during its 23rd session, held in Vienna from 28 March to 4 April 2006. According to the report of the meeting, "It is interesting that from among 6000 existing historical maps published up to 1890, there are only three maps mentioning the names of Basreh Gulf, Ghatif Gulf, and Arabic Gulf, in addition to which the name of small gulfs located at the coast with local utilization can be also named such as Chah Bahar Gulf, Siraf Gulf, Basreh Gulf, Ghatif Gulf, Bahrain Gulf,…. but such names are not applied to the entirety of the Persian Gulf. It is obvious that the promotional use by the Arabs of the three aforementioned maps, whose identity and originality are not clear, in comparison with 6000 maps and more than 200 historical and tourism books from Irastus to Herodotus to Estakhri and Ibn Houghal, who have all called the water body, Persian Gulf, shall lack any value."

The report further notes that "any change, destruction, or alteration of the names registered in historical deeds and maps is like the destruction of ancient works and is considered as an improper action. Therefore, the names of geographical features profiting from a unique historical identity, should not be utilized as political instruments in reaching a political, tribal, and racial objective, or in any clash with national interests and other's values," and finally concludes "...it is worth mentioning that the name of Persian Gulf has been admitted in all the live languages of the world so far and all the countries throughout the world, name this Iranian Sea, just in the language of the people: Persian Gulf. Even Arab brothers do not need to alter a historical name to have a gulf of their own, because there had been a gulf in their own name previously mentioned in the historical and geographical works and drawings, which is called at present the Red Sea (Bahr Ahmar).

I have notes about these paragraphs:

1. The art said: The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names discussed the naming issue
   but The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical does not discusses any thing what happened is what in the report of 23rd session of The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical:

106. An expert from the Asia South-West Division (other than Arabic) summarized working paper No. 61, which outlined the history of the name Persian Gulf. The Convenor recognized the careful historical content of the paper and noted that countries could not be prohibited from using or creating exonyms.

— https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/23-gegn/gegn-23-english.pdf

So Working Group on Exonyms, Iran prepared the working paper and someone read the its summary on the meeting there were not any discussing the naming issue

1. the art said "According to the report of the meeting" but it refer to the working paper not the report of meeting. report of meeting is at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/23-gegn/gegn-23-english.pdf and the working paper of Persian Gulf at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/23-gegn/wp/gegn23wp61.pdf. the reference note does not put the real writer of the working paper it must Working Group on Exonyms, Iran as in the cover.
2. As you see other bolded text this is not UN view this is Iranian view so it must moved to Iranian view section

حبيشان (talk) 20:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Excessive Gallery

This article contains an extraordinarily large gallery of very repetitive maps> I'm going to clean it up per WP:GALLERY. It's just a WP:CITEBOMB at the momentUnbh (talk) 09:50, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Is the linked source in reference of the GCC or the Arab states of the Persian Gulf?

The Arab states of the Persian Gulf comprises seven Arab countries, the six GCC states and Iraq. The first paragraph in the ‘Arabs opinion’ section cites an opinion piece article to support the claim that some Arab states prefer the title ‘Arabian Gulf’ (although I think the citation is irrelevant and weak). Personally from what I gather by the “conservative Arab states” it’s in reference of the GCC that the article heavily focuses on. Hope other editors weigh in on this though. 37.37.142.24 (talk) 16:54, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Besides that I do agree with your choice to include the Undue weight template. The section does appear to be leading in its tone and cherrypicked in its content. 37.37.142.24 (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I think it's a relatively minor issue, and not a hill worth dying on. The first actual para says Arab States of the Persian Gulf. But the lack of precision on what they're talking about at the beginning brings in to doubt the quality of the whole source anyway.

The bigger issue is the very unbalanced state of the "Arab Viewpoint" section, which is a bunch of over long quotes seemingly chosen to prove that Arabs in general support "Persian Gulf". My suspicion is that the Arabs care a lot less about this than the Iranians do outside of periodic political showboating, but it seems unlikely, even relying solely on English language sources that this section is currently an accurate representation of Arab opinionUnbh (talk) 17:12, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Unbh I support the view that the "Arab Viewpoint" section is seemingly very unbalanced; one of the citations is even to an Iranian government website. Lotan98 (talk) 22:14, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I deleted that sentence since the source is inappropriate to support a view on the "Arab Viewpoint", though the remainder still needs to be properly balanced. Lotan98 (talk) 22:20, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I reverted that WP:BOLD deletion. See explanation below. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm. It seems to me that the Viewpoint of Arabs section is mis-named, as it implies that the section characterizes the (singular) viewpoint of Arabs as a group; Arab viewpoints would be better, IMO. Also, it is not WP's job to make an editorial judgement about how reliably the cited sources reliably represent the viewpoint of the group beyond what the sources say about that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:15, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. Though it is our job to look at balance and the noteworthiness of viewpoints. I think the current selection are there because of the content of their view, and not the noteworthiness. Unbh (talk) 03:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

And that, of course, brings up WP:DUE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

(added) I've reverted this WP:BOLD deletion (explained in this out of timeline insertion above), since it seems to flout DUE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I think this deletion a significant improvement to DUE, especially since as noted it's an Iranian source purporting to represent the views of Arabs. Unbh (talk) 10:13, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a dog in this fight, but a consensus solution is more inline with WP policies than unexplained bold removal of content. Also, an explanation that Iranian sources characterizing Arab views should be disregarded because they are biased appears to contradict WP:DUE {"Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. [...]") If it is seen to have due weight for mention, prhaps it could be cited something like the following: Historical, Geographical and Legal Validity of the Name: PERSIAN GULF (PDF). Working Paper No. 61: Item 14 of the Provisional Agenda: Activities relating to the Working Group on Exonyms (Report). United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names; Twenty-third Session; Vienna, 28 March – 4 April 2006. (Prepared Working Group on Exonyms, Iran) That could probably be improved. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 17:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

That paper gets cited a lot in these discussions, and often gets presented as some sort of UN conclusion, which it isn't. It is effectively an Iranian lobbying document. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the Arab perspective but of this.

Likewise I don't have a particular dig in this fight, but this article is certainly not balanced at the moment, and this section is by far the most problematic Unbh (talk) 23:21, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The question re this particular item is, I think, if (a) it is effectively an Iranian lobbying document and (b) is charactrized as such in reliable sources, is it more in keeping with NPOV to suppress mention of it in this WP article or to mention it along with that characterization, citing the sources. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:18, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Possible cite from 1923 or earlier using the term "Arabian gulf"

I sometimes look at this article out of curiosity. I see that it currently says, "According to authors Philip L. Kohl, Mara Kozelsky, and Nachman Ben-Yehuda in their work Selective Remembrances, Sir Charles Belgrave (British adviser to the ruler of Bahrain) was "the first westerner to use and advocate the name 'Arabian gulf', [...]". Some idle searching today led me to a use of the term "Arabian gulf" in The New Learned History. 1923. p. 6005. [...] to the northern end of the Arabian gulf. That quote from the book is from a direct quote there which begins on page 6004, and which cites "F. Lenormant,Manual of Ancient History, bk. 7, ch. 4. " The F. Lenormant there may be François Lenormant (1837-1883). That's all I found and I don't know whether or not it of any use, but I thought to mention it here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:09, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

It's clear from the context of the quote that "Arabian gulf" here means the Red Sea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F04:41E:9600:E55A:A954:8282:21CF (talk) 19:20, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

US Navy etc

I reverted the addition of a couple of paragraphs about the US Navy as OR. The only source that discuss this rather than just examples of use if Foxnews, which is not a very good source. 37.245.43.126 (talk) 06:24, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Lead changes

I've restored the long standing lead paragraph. The new version is not an improvement and introduced several statements but fully back up by the article 2.48.219.209 (talk) 09:34, 12 August 2024 (UTC)