Iraq, now ...

Iraq, now on its way to regaining sovereignty as an interim government will take over soon, will have to wait for some time before it can have its very own two-letter Internet Country Code – “.iq.”

In 1997, ICANN handed the responsibility for the “.iq” ccTLD to a company called InfoCom Corp. as the then dictator, Saddam Hussein, had blocked the internet.

Infocom Corp., a Texas based company, sold Web services in the Middle East region. In 2002 Bayan Elashi, the Chief Executive of InfoCom, and his brothers were charged for funding an extremist Islamic group. They went into trial this month in Dallas. As a result of this case the ".iq" ccTLD will be held up indefinitely.

ICANN has been implored to free up “.iq” by members of both, the U.S. and the new Iraqi governments as soon as possible and has admitted that there is more than one party that has applied to take over as the ‘.iq’ registry operator.

It is imperative for Iraq that they establish themselves as an independent, sovereign nation both in the real world as well as on the internet. For now though, it looks like Iraqis will have to use the regular “.com” or “.net” domains for their web sites.