First non-Latin country domains launched

PanARMENIAN.Net - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the launch of the first country-code domain names written in non-Latin script. The three new top-level domains are السعودية. (“Al-Saudiah”), امارات. (“Emarat”) and مصر. (“Misr”). All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left.

In a conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, Internet Society NGO chairman Igor Mkrtumyan characterized creation of national domains as a political issue, rather than technical necessity.

“Theoretically, creation of Armenian domains is a feasible, though time-taking procedure. Surveys we conducted among Armenian users prove Armenian domains to be unnecessary,” he said.

ICANN began testing internationalized domain name (IDN) back in the Fall of 2006, and tested 11 languages - Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.

"ICANN staff are still finishing the processing of these domain's delegations, but now that they are visible in the root zone it is fair to say these are mostly formalities. The remaining tasks include final technical verifications, updating the IANA WHOIS database and publishing the delegation reports," the ICANN blog said on May 5. "Now the hard work happens in the countries which have their new IDN ccTLDs. They will now commence their own processes to launch the domains in a way that gives their communities access to put them to day-to-day use."