Jesper,

As soon as any new country name is recognized by the UN, the ISO asks the government of the country what code it wants. After the country responds, the members of the ISO's code maintenance authority vote on the requested code. As soon as approval is had, the ISO updates the official table at http://tinyurl.com/7vmu . There has been no update since these countries split.

The FAQ's at the ISO web site contains the following:

What are the ISO 3166-1 country codes for Serbia and Montenegro?
A: Currently, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency is in the process of preparing the codes for representing seperately Serbia and Montenegro in consultation with the national authorities for these two countries.

[Note that the ISO misspelled separately as seperately.]

None of this answers your question as to why it is taking so long, but at least they claim to be working on it.

Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA

----- Original Message -----

From: Jesper Nielsen/Borderbase

To: BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 2:43 PM

Subject: SV: [BoundaryPoint] montenegro now mj & serbia rb but yikes what was this yi

Why is ISO anyway taking so long?