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IDN ccTLD Fast Track

May 2010 is a very exciting month for IDN.

On 5th May, ICANN announced the first three historic IDN ccTLD have entered in the root zone file. The lucky countries that got their IDNs are

Egypt: مصر (Egypt)
Saudi Arabia: السعودية (AlSaudiah)
United Arab Emirates: امارات (Emarat)

Subsequently, Russian Federation: .рф was added on 13th May.

While there are some hiccup (mostly communication, or the lack of), the announcement are generally well-regarded and welcome.

We are also pleased to report the long standing problems with Chinese IDN ccTLD may finally be resolved with the board resolution on "22nd April"<://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-22apr10-en.htm#synchronized>

• Therefore, it is RESOLVED, (2010.04.22.10), that CNNIC be notified that the .中国 (xn-fiqs8S) and .中國 (xn-fiqz9S) IDN ccTLD request has completed the Fast Track String Evaluation and that they may enter the String Delegation step in the Fast Track Process, using the standard IANA ccTLD delegation function, and that delegation is contingent on completion of the IANA process criteria and publication of CNNIC's detailed Implementation Plan to be finalized in consultation with ICANN.

• Therefore, it is RESOLVED, (2010.04.22.11), that TWNIC be notified that .台灣 (xn-kpry57d) and .台湾 (xn-kprw13d) IDN ccTLD request has completed the Fast Track String Evaluation and that they may enter the String Delegation step in the Fast Track Process, using the standard IANA ccTLD delegation function, and that delegation is contingent on completion of the IANA process criteria and publication of TWNIC's detailed Implementation Plan to be finalized in consultation with ICANN.

ALAC Statement IDN Issues

In March, we started preparing an ALAC Statement on the IDN ccTLD, IDN Variants and IDN 3 Characters statement. Later, this was merged into a larger statement covering IDN Synchronized ccTLD. It was ratified and corresponded to ICANN on 10th May. The final statement can be found here.

On 19th May, Tina Dam, Senior Director IDNs of ICANN replied with the following

I think this is an appropriate standpoint by the ALAC - and I feel certain that we all agree with it. The difficulty is implementing this in the gTLD process as well as in the fast Track Process. Our first attempt was back in February 2009. The latest attempt was recently in April. These two attempts are quite similar, but not successful yet. We do, on the staff side, have the opportunity to discuss this over with the Board working group formed for this purpose. We are currently discussing overall plans with them and we hope to be able to come out with some more information in time for the Brussels meeting - although this would be separate to the gTLD and the fast Track programs.

Feel free to share the information with ALAC.

Tina
Tina Dam
Senior Director IDNs