OUP apologizes for using false name for P.Gulf

The largest university press in the world has apologized for inappropriately using a false name for the Persian Gulf in an English language teaching book.

The Oxford University Press said its editorial board agreed that reference to the so-called Arabian Gulf, instead of the correct name Persian Gulf, needed to be removed from its Bright Star Pupil’s Book 4 and that it will ensure any reference is deleted in future prints.

“On behalf of Oxford University Press, I would like to apologize for the inaccuracy in this usage,” Group Communications Director Anna Baldwin said.
“Oxford University Press strives towards excellence in scholarship and accuracy in all our facts,” Baldwin told Cultural Counsellor of Iranian Embassy in London.

She said that OUP’s in-house editorial guidelines on appropriate nomenclature were already correct about the accuracy of Persian Gulf, but that she “ensure the guidelines are re-circulated to avoid such an error re-occurring.”

The apology comes after Iranian Cultural Counsellor in London Ali Mohammad Helmi wrote to express his surprise and disappointment about the inaccuracy to OUP chief executive Nigel Portwood.

“My disappointment is confounded by the fact that this mistake is in direct contradiction with the very concept of a universal institution that Oxford University Press has strived to embody throughout its history,” Helmi said.

He said that OUP, which has offices in more than 50 countries, had a well-renowned reputation “built upon adhering to the basic principles of disseminating accurate and unbiased historical facts to the public, especially in this case to young children.”

The Persian Gulf was the historical name of the waterway “used over two millenniums ago by the ancient Greeks as Sinus Persicus as recorded by renowned Greek historians/geographers and then by the Romans as Mare Persicum,” Helmi reminded OUP.