Istanbul to be center for internet management

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Turkish Transportion Minister Binali Yıldırım (R) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) CEO Fadi Chehade speak.AA photo

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will open an internet management center in Istanbul, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade announced yesterday.

“It is not going to be a small representative office. It will be a Head Office where 50 or 60 staff will work,” Chehade said. He noted that as ICANN grew, the center in Istanbul would also grow, during the launching meeting of “Istanbul Internet Management Center” attended by Turkish Minister of Transportation and Communication Binali Yıldırım.

Yıldırım said that many global information companies had decided to make Turkey an operations center in the last two years, also adding that some of them had done so. He underlined that ICANN’s coming to Turkey would raise this demand and bring new business opportunities. “Turkey is a rising power in the information sector,” he said.

As part of efforts to become less U.S.-centric ICANN, which is based in Los Angeles, is to set up two new hubs in Singapore and Istanbul to serve global markets.

Yıldırım said April 11 that the management of the world’s Internet had been divided into three regions, noting that Istanbul would be the center for the Africa, Europe and Central Asia region.

“Turkey is becoming one of the intersection points for both the Internet and communication,” he said.