Dear Councilors, If you will recall, the Council has been considering the next steps for the IDN Operational Track for some time now. Kurt Pritz and his fellow RySG Councilors had proposed in an email a path forward for the IDN Operational Track which recommends: “the Council defer the work of the IDN Guidelines v4.0 Operational Track, and advise the Board of this and recommend that the Board continue deferring the adoption of the IDN Guidelines 4.0 until the issues overlapping with the IDN EPDP can be fully deliberated and resolved by the IDN EPDP.” In the email referenced earlier, Kurt included a draft letter from the Council to the Board for the purposes of advising the Board, as noted in the bullet above. Since discussing the approach with the Council and also with the Board in June, that letter has been revised by Council leadership and Kurt to try and take into account input received. Attached, please find that revised draft letter from the Council to the Board. For your reference, you will also find the original draft provided to the Council on 4 June by Kurt. Please send any proposed revisions to the letter by 11 August 2021. Best, Steve Steven Chan Senior Director, GNSO Support Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Email: steve.chan@icann.org Skype: steve.chan55 Mobile: +1.310.339.4410 Find out more about the GNSO by visiting: https://learn.icann.org/ Follow @GNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ICANN_GNSO Transcripts and recordings of GNSO Working Group and Council events are located on the GNSO Master Calendar