By Al Arabiya , 19 March 2012
Subject: FWD: Third operator announcement
From: mansour.azzam@mopa.gov.sy
Date: 12/4/2011 12:53 AM
To:

To the minister of presidential affairs,

Regarding your telephone call in the evening, we would like to inform you about the following:

1: Today a meeting was held with a delegation from the Iranian telecommunication company in the presence of the Iranian ambassador. They introduced the legal and working situation of the Iranian telecommunication company and they repeated their interest in having license for a third operator in Syria. We told them that we will repeat the announcement for the third operator with conditions that will allow the Iranian company to contest for the license.
The Iranian ambassador has expressed desires to obtain the third operator’s license through direct negotiation, but we told him that doing so contradicts the decision of the Syrian government and that it is premature to discuss this.

2: Regarding the announcement date, due to the latest Arab League’s decision to halt investments in Syria, it would be difficult to expect the participation of any Arab and European company in the competition. This could put us in a very difficult position in the next stages of announcement.

So, for this reason and prior to making the announcement I suggest that we first contact the embassies of a number of friendly countries and inform them about the project and urge their telecom companies to participate in order to have the minimum number of participants needed for the contest to succeed.

The Indian ambassador was indeed already contacted about this and I suggest contacting also the ambassadors of Russia, China and others to coordinate with the foreign ministry.

Warm Regards
Imad al-Sabouni