PARIS - The Arab Knowledge and Management Society’s (AKMS) Multilingual Internet Initiative (MII) Board held a meeting for representatives of Arab countries and users of the Arabic alphabet on the first day of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) conference, June 22, 2008, in Paris.

The meeting was led by Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, AKMS Chairman and Chairman of the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAGorg).

The MII is co-chaired by Samar Al-Labbad on behalf of AKMS and Baher Ismat on behalf of ICANN.

Country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) and generic top-level domain name (gTLD) managers from Arab countries attended the meeting, along with the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) affiliated with ICANN and representatives of international organizations specialized in this field.

A number of recommendations were issued at the end of the meeting including the support of AKMS’s efforts and initiatives to introduce the Arabic alphabet to Internet usage, and the inclusion of new members to the MII, in addition to urging Arab nations to utilize the fast track adopted by ICANN for using the Arabic alphabet in country code domain names.

The next MII meeting is to be held in Cairo on November 1, 2008, in concurrence with the ICANN conference then.