(Reuters) The Palestinian Authority has won its own domain

Palestinian leaders, who have been seeking statehood for decades, first requested a unique "country code top-level domain" in 1997. On Wednesday the Net's domain-name oversight body awarded them the country code .ps.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers based its decision on a United Nations verdict to use "PS" as a code for a list of U.N.-recognized countries and territories. That list, called the ISO 3166-1, is the basis of existing country-code domains on the Internet.

"After over two years of deliberations, the United Nations ... [has] determined that a code should be provided for the Occupied Palestinian Territory," ICANN's report said. "Thus, a crucial change in circumstances has occurred since this matter first arose in early 1997."

Country code domains indicate the national origin of computers connected to the Internet, including top-level domains such as .us for the United States, .jp for Japan, and .il for Israel. Generic top-level domains such as .com and .org were intended for general use by the Internet public, while country code top-level domains were created for individual countries to use as they saw fit.

The initial request for a Palestinian domain was declined in 1997, but was renewed under ICANN in October 1999.

"Because no code for Palestine was then on the ISO 3166-1 list, in May 1997, [the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which at that time was charged with assigning domains] declined to delegate a ccTLD to Palestine," ICANN said.