The Islamic Solidarity Games (ISG) have been cancelled. If anyone really cares.
The games were created in 2005, supposedly to help bolster relations between Muslim countries, but they had already been pushed back from October 2009 to April 2010, before they were finally quashed.
The reason this relation-cementing event was a no-go? It seems the Riyadh-based Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation, headed up by Saudi Olympic Federation president Prince Sultan bin Fahd, canceled the event, scheduled to be held in Tehran in April, because its Iranian counterpart wouldn't play nice and remove the phrase "Persian Gulf" from the event's promotional material and winners' medals. The Arab countries of the region insist on the term "Arabian Gulf" or simply "Gulf."
Had the games taken place, it would have been only the second time after the first tournament held in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah in 2005. Saudi Arabia and Iran have both got their shorts in such tangled-up knots over how to play nice that Tehran has even taken the step of suspending Muslim pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia because of alleged mistreatment of Iranian pilgrims by Saudi religious police.
The biggest guffaw in all this comes from the fact that the news of the games' cancellation coincided with the launch of the 19th annual International Conference on the Persian Gulf in Tehran, which included participants from 15 "Gulf"-area countries. The conference is meant to "demonstrate Iran's potential and capabilities in resolving regional problems through cooperation with other regional countries" according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. (italics my own - sorry, I just couldn't resist)
So much for solidarity, eh?
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