Dear EURALO Members, Greetings from Asia though I am travelling in Germany! We recently received an ALS joining request from an Armenian party namely Information Policy Analytical Center and I wanted to invite your RALO's comment on this interesting issue. I would like EURALO and APRALO to collectively explore this issue. IF you kindly browse through the messages below in a communication that has been taking place in APRALO, the staff pointed us to Armenia being an Asia region. Todate, my knowledge has been that Armenia is a EuroAsian region. Now the issue is that Armenia is very near to Europe and would be better off in my personal opinion to be coordinated under EURALO or may be we can strike a possible consensus to propose Armenian application requests to be treated as EuroAsia and our RALO's can mutually explore agreement to directing such an application to EURALO. Logically this region would possibly have issues closer to issues faced by other EURALO ALSs and lesser important than Asian region issues though this may just be my personal view. Therefore dear Colleagues, I would like to request EURALO to help us to resolve this issue and where if possible, forward this issue to the At-Large leadership to further discuss with ICANN. I look forward your suggestions. Best Regards Fouad Bajwa 2010/7/30 Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa@gmail.com>:

Dear Matthias,

I would like to step in on this issue and search for a solution since within this framework of community consensus, I believe that there are always some means available to reach a compromise between RALO's on issues where exceptions can be explored with community consent. On this issue, I would like to get in touch with EURALO.

When I look at Armenia and that is a region present on the edge of Europe or the bridge to Europe from Turkey, only Turkey is the country that is both in Asia and Europe and history maintains that the Ottoman Empire was always in conflict with Armenia because it was not possible to find path to Europe otherwise. Armenia exists as EuroAsia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia therefore I will treat this as a EurAsia issue and not an Asian issue only.

The documents shared are not rules, they are more or less principles that in principle we recognize these regions in the way links point to but we as a community have a responsibility to also facilitate ALSs where otherwise we are unable to find a possible equally acceptable solution. We as an At-Large community can work together to request a change of this principle with respect to working with ICANN to reach a compromise because this is need-to-need based.

Instead of giving a sweeping statement to revoke this party from joining APRALO, I would like to take this issue up with Wolf Ludwig, Sebastian and Olivier before we reach a final decision and the fact remains that the final decision remains with the APRALO community and the fact also remains that RALO's have an Inter-RALO link and we can jointly resolve issues with mutual consent/consensus.

I would like to request staff to await a final decision regarding this interested ALS party from both APRALO and EURALO as we make contact with eachother taking some time to resolve this issue within the community.

In consensus oriented groupings and networks, we have to work together to workout possibilities and mutual opportunities.

Best

Fouad Bajwa

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Matthias Langenegger <matthias.langenegger@icann.org> wrote:

...

Thank you, Hong.

We will inform the applicant that it is unfortunately not currently possible to choose the region they would like to join. According to ICANN's geographic regions, IPAC is part of the APRALO region (see full list under: http://www.icann.org/en/meetings/montreal/geo-regions-topic.htm).

ICANN's Geographic Regions Working Group has done an extensive review on the current geographic model and has recently published its Latest Draft Interim Report (see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-28may10-en.htm#foot3)

Cheryl represents At-Large in the Geographic Regions WG along with Carlton Samuels.

Best Regards, -- Matthias Langenegger Manager, At-Large Regional Affairs Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Email: matthias.langenegger@icann.org Main Tel: +41 (79) 644 65 35 Fax: +41 (22) 594 85 44 Skype ID: matthiaslangenegger

On 27/07/2010 10:20, "Hong Xue" <hongxueipr@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Thanks for sending us the ALS application to the list. I've a question: if we take a look at Objective part Q.3, it seems that the applicant is based in Europe and interested in joining EURALO. Did I overlook anything?

Hong

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:28 PM, ICANN At-Large Staff <staff@atlarge.icann.org> wrote:

...

Dear all,

This is to inform you that we received an ALS application from the Information Policy Analytical Center. It is based in Baku, Azerbaijan and would be a member of APRALO if accepted.

Please find the application form attached. Due diligence for this application will be provided to you in due course.

-- Regards,

Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Seth Greene, Gisella Gruber-White, Marilyn Vernon, Kristina Nordström ICANN At-Large Staff

email: staff[at]atlarge.icann.org website: www.atlarge.icann.org

-- Regards. -------------------------- Fouad Bajwa