A few years ago city council of Urmia in South Azerbaijan made a decision to use the original Turkish form of the city’s name in official correspondence of council. Afterward the signboard of the city council was changed to Turkish form of “Urmiya” from its Farsi writing of “Orumiyeh”.
But this was not welcomed by İranian-Persian nationalists and the official authorities and they launched a campaign against this decision.
This campaign was illegal because they had not such a right and it was a legal right of the city council to decide what is name of the city.
Eventually, last week the city council was illegally forced to bring back the Farsi name and the previous Farsi name was brought back the council’s signboard.
But South Azerbaijani rights activist resist against and denounced the illegal repression on the city council.
They wrote an open letter to the governor of West Azerbaijan province and other responsible officials, denouncing the cultural oppression on Turkish Nation in South Azerbaijan.
In the open letter it is emphasized that the name “Urmia” dates back in to at least one millennium and even reference Farsi encyclopedias and dictionaries such as “Dehkhoda” which is used by Iranian state institutions has recorded this writing of the name.
They noted that such narrow minded attitudes harms the feelings of people of Azerbaijan and it will bring undesired consequences.