[EURO-Discuss] Bulgaria moves to register Cyrillic Internet domain

[Dessi Pefeva]

Dear colleagues,

Thank you to all of you who have sent congratulation messages.
I hope ICANN will do the necessary steps to make this important gain 
happen as soon as it is possible.

I believe this step will help many more Cyrillic-only users and 
potential users to actively join the Internet community.

Regards,
Dessi

Kleinwächter wrote:
> Congratulations to all Bulgarians and others who had helped to make this happen. Hopefully ICANN will take this to the "Fast Track". A good day for Internet Users in Bulgaria. 
>  
> Wolfgang
>  
>
> ________________________________
>
> Von: euro-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org im Auftrag von Dessi Pefeva
> Gesendet: Di 24.06.2008 11:10
> Betreff: [EURO-Discuss] Bulgaria moves to register Cyrillic Internet domain
>
>
>
> I am happy to announce that the Bulgarian government has shown
> officially its intent to register the .?? (.bg in Cyrillic) domain. They
> did it in a letter, sent yesterday to ICANN's President Paul Twomey.
> This is due also thanks to the efforts of ISOC-Bulgaria. Bulgarian
> President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and the Minister of ITC are
> all members of ISOC. They have talked on a number of times in the past
> six months with ISOC.bg on these issues.
>
> Obviously the conversations have been fruitful. See more information
> here: http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKL2360195920080623
>
> And this is the official press-release from the ITC Agency:
>
> Bulgaria has requested the registration of a Cyrillic top level domain
> (TLD) from _ICANN_ <http://www.icann.org/>. The letter from the chairman
> of the Bulgarian State Agency for Information Technologies and
> Communicatoins (_SAITC_ <http://www.daits.government.bg/>) Plamen
> Vatchkov to the president of ICANN Paul Twomey was delivered today, June
> 23^rd , 2008, in Paris via the Bulgarian representative to the
> Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN, and was distributed for
> information only in Geneva where the ITU is headquartered. Thus Bulgaria
> requested the fast track for implementation of its own Cyrillic IDNs.
>
> In the letter to the ICANN President, the SAITC chairman informs the
> authoritative international organization, dealing with assigned names
> and numbers, that Bulgaria has decided to register and maintain the
> country code .?? (bg in Cyrillic)
>
> Further in the letter, SAITC chairman informs that the discussion on
> using Cyrillic domain names was initiated by the President of Bulgaria
> Georgi Parvanov during the visit of the Russian President Putin and the
> then vice-prime minister, and now President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev
> during their visit in January 2008 in Sofia. The question was also
> discussed during meetings of Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev
> with the Russian counterparts, as well as during talks between foreign
> ministers Ivailo Kalfin and Sergei Lavrov. Last week, Russian President
> Medvedev announced in Moscow, that the issue of Cyrillic domain names is
> an important one, and on his political agenda.
>
> "We believe that the initiative, which we discussed with our Russian
> friends in the last months, is a clear fact about the importance which
> Bulgaria has in the world Internet. It is an example not only about the
> historical meaning of the Cyrillic alphabet in the world arena, but also
> about the fact that through Bulgaria it became an official alphabet of
> the European Union. By sending this letter to Dr. Twomey -- ICANN's
> president and my friend, SAITC expresses not only the wish, but the
> readiness to put the Cyrillic IDNs on the Internet map", says Plamen
> Vatchkov. "There's nothing more natural than the proposed domain to be
> the country code, which is already known and accepted in the country
> itself. Creating domains in scripts, different from the Latin, is the
> next big step in the development of the Internet, which will allow
> millions of people who don't use English to have easier access to the
> Global Net resources".
>
> SAITC is organizing a meeting later this year in Sofia, where all
> countries, using Cyrillic will be invited - Belarus, Bulgaria,
> Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan,
> Uzbekistan and Ukraine. The meeting will be dedicated to discussion
> about IDNs.
>
> for more information:
> Press Center
> phone +359-2-9492368
> "Ekaterina Popova" <epopova at daits.government.bg
> <mailto:epopova at daits.government.bg>>
>
>
>
> /Ms. Dessi Pefeva,
> Internet Society - Bulgaria/
>
> _______________________________________________
> EURO-Discuss mailing list
> EURO-Discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/euro-discuss_atlarge-lists.icann.org
>
> Homepage for the region: http://www.euralo.org <http://www.euralo.org/> 
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> EURO-Discuss mailing list
> EURO-Discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/euro-discuss_atlarge-lists.icann.org
>
> Homepage for the region: http://www.euralo.org
>
>