AMMAN - The government on Saturday voiced its concern over the situation in Syria and called for dialogue to end violence and bloodshed in the northern neighbour.

Meanwhile, a senior official denied as “false” a news report of a dispute between Amman and Damascus over reported Syrian accusations that Jordan was involved in supporting the Syrian opposition.

In a statement to The Jordan Times yesterday, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications and Government Spokesperson Abdullah Abu Rumman described as baseless a news report that Syrian President Bashar Assad has accused Jordan of “smuggling arms” for anti-government groups which have been protesting against the regime since March.

A crackdown on the rallies and violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Human rights activists set the figure at more than 2,400 citizens killed by Syrian security forces, many others injured, in addition to thousands of arrests.

The Kuwaiti Al Qabas daily on Saturday reported that Assad has turned down an initiative by the Jordanian side to end bloodshed, accusing Jordan of “collaborating with the opposition” by providing them with arms.

“This initiative has never existed and we have not been contacted by the Syrian authorities over any accusations of any kind. Jordan respects the integrity and sovereignty of Syria and we do not interfere in the internal affairs of any country,” the spokesperson said.

“Our position with respect to the escalation in the situation there is clear and our concern is growing,” the official added.

“The government has voiced and still voices regret over the increasing number of victims and calls for sparing the lives of the brotherly Syrian people.”

AMMAN - Information Technology experts on Saturday attributed the low turnout in registering websites in Jordan’s Arabic top-level domain الاردن. (.alordon) to being “unnecessary” and weak promotion for the service.

The experts said the service is not expected to witness any growth in usage but a “huge” promotional campaign might attracts hundreds of websites to use the domain.

“The service does not add any value. I do not think Internet users will find it difficult to type a few letters in English to access a certain website. Therefore, there is no need to type in Arabic letters,” Mahmoud Al Kurdi, sales and marketing manager at Virtuport, told The Jordan Times Saturday.

“If a person does not even know how to type the address of a certain website in English letters, he or she can type in Arabic letters on Google and search for the website. I see no point in typing address in Arabic letters. It is not convenient,” he said.

“Maybe when there is a proper campaign and more people know about it, the service will spread,” he added.

Abed Shamlawi, CEO of ICT Association of Jordan – int@j, echoed similar remarks.

“People, even those who do not speak English, are used to typing addresses of sites in English letters. Typing the address of a site in English letter takes just a few words, it is not like writing a page in English,” he said.

“Not many people know about the service. When there is a proper promotional campaign, maybe more companies will be interested to register; otherwise, the service has no future in the short-term,” he told The Jordan Times Saturday.

“People are used to typing in English letters. The service is not very common in other Arab states. In Qatar, however, there is a huge promotion for the service and still turnout is not large,” he said.

National Information Technology Centre General Manager Nabeel Fayoumi, whose agency launched the service, attributed the “weak” turnout on the service to lack of awareness and added that the centre is working on a campaign to be launched by the end of this year.

According to Fayoumi, some 150 websites belonging to public and private entities have registered their domains in Arabic since its introduction in October 2010.

Jordan is one of eight Arab states that launched the top-level domain in Arabic.

In Internet parlance, top-level domains, or TLDs, are the last label of a fully qualified domain name and the end of a URL, according to web sources. Common TLDs include .com, .org, .net, and Latin-alphabet country codes like .jo.