Iraq tangles with Iran over name of the Gulf
Iraq’s Parliament Speaker Haibat Al Halbousi has entered a social media dispute with his Iranian counterpart over the name of the Arabian Gulf.
A day after they met in Baghdad, Mr Al Halbousi and Iran’s Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf were on opposite sides of the argument online.
Mr Ghalibaf had on Wednesday evening posted an image of himself in front of a map of the region, which used the Iranian term Persian Gulf.
On Thursday, Iraq‘s Mr Al Halbousi responded with a virtually identical mocked-up image that labelled it the Arabian Gulf.
The term Arabian Gulf was adopted by Arab states in the 1960s and has been widely used since. Control of the sea and its shipping lanes has become particularly sensitive during the present US-Iran war.
The Iraqi and Iranian parliament speakers addressed the issue at their meeting, as Mr Al Halbousi requested a “special status” for Iraq to allow oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US President Donald Trump has provoked Iranian anger in the past by referring to the Arabian Gulf. Previous US administrations have also used the term.
Iran has often raised objections on the subject. In 2012, it threatened legal action against Google after the company omitted the waterway’s name on its maps.
In a previous naming dispute with Iraq in 2023, Iran summoned the Iraqi ambassador to protest against prime minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani’s use of the term Arabian Gulf to describe a football tournament taking place in Basra.
Iraq is subject to both Iranian and American influence. At the Baghdad meeting, Mr Al Halbousi had cited the “nature of the relationship” between Iraq and Iran when seeking special permission to export oil.
But Iraq’s government is also eager to curb the influence of pro-Iran militias operating on its soil, which had contributed to Iraq being dragged into the regional war. Armed factions have been given a September 30 deadline to disarm.