Oriental Institute Computer Laboratory, October 14, 2003

From: Amir Naghshineh-Pour [mailto:abibis@msn.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 10:58 AM
To: jsanders@babylon-orinst.uchicago.edu
Cc: drandel@uchicago.edu; pgtf@iic.org; syousef@uchicago.edu;
hmoayyad@uchicago.edu; j-perry@uchicago.edu
Subject: [PGTF] Persian Gulf

John Sanders, Oriental Institute Computer Laboratory:
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/INFO/MAP/SITE/Iran_Site_150dpi.html,

It is not up to a person or an organization like you to change the
historic and correct name "Persian Gulf" to something that satisfies you and
certain people. There is also a body of water south of the Oman Sea which is
called the "Arabian Sea". If I and other Iranians/Persians expressed our dissatisfaction towards the name of that body of water would you change
it to "the Sea"?

In many occasions US officials referred to that body of water the "Persian Gulf". The following is what President Bush in his State of the Union speech in January 2003 clearly referred to this body of water. The following is what he said,"They include a man who directed logistics and funding for the 11 September attacks... the chief of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf who planned the bombings of our embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole... an al-Qaeda operations chief from South east Asia... a former director of al-Qaeda's

training camps in Afghanistan... a key al-Qaeda operative in Europe...
and a major al-Qaeda leader in Yemen."

Also, in many other occasions Secretary Colin Powel referred to this
Gulf the "Persian Gulf".

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of State uses the term "Persian Gulf"
for the waterway to the south of Iran and north of the Arabian Peninsula.
The following are links to the corresponding matter.

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2422.htm
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2404.htm

Moreover, the United Nations refers to this body of water as the Persian

Gulf. Please look at the following references.

http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/iran.pdf
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/maplib/docs/escwa.pdf
http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/qatar.pdf

It is so shameful that a prestigious institution such as the University
of
Chicago gets involved with such ridiculous games that a few opportunists
and
revisionists try to achieve for personal gains.

Names such as the "Gulf" and "A... Gulf" are fabricated and bogus names
and
are not recognized by any geographical organizations and international
norms.

Bear in mind that using those names will jeopardize the integrity and
credibility of your Institution.

I urge you to follow standard international norms and change your map
and
use the correct name "Persian Gulf".

Sincerely and respectfully,

Amir Naghshineh-pour
Persian Gulf Task Force, San Diego Chapter, CA, USA
http://www.persiangulfonline.org

From: "John C. Sanders" <jsanders@babylon-orinst.uchicago.edu>
To: "Reza Vatandoust" <rezavan@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: The Correct name is Persian Gulf
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:32:16 -0500

Reza C. Vatandoust,

you touch on one of the delicate issues that an Institute like our's
is up against when trying to maintain good relations with ALL
countries in the Middle East, since we work, or have worked, in
Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc...

Words and names carry much meaning, and baggage, as you are very much
aware, or else you would not bring this subject up. To call it the
Persian Gulf is not acceptable to certain surrounding Arab countries.
Your complaint attests to the fact that calling it the Arabian Gulf
would not be acceptable to Iranian sensibilities. Regardless of the
"accepted norm", however that is defined, what has been the common
terminology for years doesn't seem to matter in certain capitals of
the region, and we, the Oriental Institute, are not interested in
taking sides OR making enemies. So we chose to avoid the issue, in
one sense, or perhaps to invite criticism from both sides at the same
time, and shorten the name to "The Gulf". Not a pleasant solution,
but the lesser of evils in our opinion.

We did, in fact, even discuss not labelling the gulf at all - the
worst of the four options we saw as available to us. I trust you can
understand our predicament if you do not agree with our solution.

As a last point of view, remember that the ancient Sumerian &
Akkadian, the languages of the first "civilized" inhabitants who
lived on its shore referred to that body of water as the "sea" or the
"lower sea" [ a-ab-be-sig-sig (sumerian) & tianctum shapiltum
(akkadian) ] for well over 4000 years, long before the Elamites and
the Persian Empire. What would their opinion on the issue be?

To the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago,

This correspondence is in relation to a matter which has been
brought to the attention of our monitoring team which has noticed
that in your Oriental Institute web site
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/INFO/MAP/SITE/Iran_Site_150dpi.html
there exists a large printed map which has the Internationally
recognised body of water the Persian Gulf labeled as 'the Gulf'.

The Persian Gulf has been known under this name since the 6th century
BC.
In recent years political moves have been made to establish the name
on record as the Persian Gulf, this was done by two significant
announcements by the United Nations --The first announcement was
made through the document UNAD, 311/Qen on March 5, 1971, and the
second was UNLA 45.8.2 section C, on August 10, 1984.
I invite you to provide me with some concrete evidence as to how you
came about to use the incorrect name 'the Gulf' on your map and in
fact the origin of your map.
If however you are unable to do this concrete evidence provided by
myself should convince you that the correct name of the body of
water south of the nation of Iran (Persia) and north of the Arabian
Peninsula is the Persian Gulf.

I am providing you with links to the United Nations,
http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/iran.pdf
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/maplib/docs/escwa.pdf

Link to the United States of America Department of State,
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2419.htm

Furthermore, I urge you to keep in line with the universities own
motto "Crescat scientia; vita excolatur"
"Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched"
How can human life be enriched if the knowledge that grows is
inaccurate? The correct name of the body of water is the Persian
Gulf and it has withstood the test of time for thousands of years
and characterises the region and gives it that special historical
significance.
By omitting such a historically significant name as the Persian you
are disassembling the regions symbolic significance and in effect
undermining your own institutions credibility as a center of
impartial learning.

I urge you to change the labeling on your world maps to read the Persian Gulf.
For further information please visit our website on
http://www.persiangulfonline.org

Sincere Regards
Reza C. Vatandoust (PGTF, Sydney)
Faculty of Law-University of Technology Sydney
www.persiangulfonline.org
www.iranalliance.org

_________________________________________________________________
John C. Sanders, Head
Oriental Institute Computer Laboratory
1155 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
773-702-0989 voice
773-702-9853 fax
jc-sanders@uchicago.edu
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu