This week Russian search engine giant, Yandex, announced it will expand operations into the Iranian market.
However, on Tuesday, a representative from the company said it had no plans to open up a local office.
“Currently, we have no plans to open new offices,” Azerbaijan’s news provider, Trend, quoted Yandex press office as saying on Monday.
The denial of the move south comes after Russian and Iranian communications ministers Nikolay Nikiforov and Mahmoud Vaezi respectively signed a deal on Sunday.
“We are familiar with the powerful Russian search engine Yandex. We agreed that Yandex will open an office in Iran. The system will be adapted for the Iranian people and will be in Persian,” TASS quotes Vaezi as saying.
However, reports from local online media say websites like Yandex.com and Yandex.com.tr are currently blocked inside Iran. Sobahne Online reported on Tuesday that both versions of the international search engine are not accessible within Iran. Yandex.ru, however, is domestically accessible.
According to Russia Today, Vaezi says 13-14 million Iranian users could begin to use the Russian system.
Russia is ready to “open for Iran modern information and communication technologies, including those intended for programs and needs of the Islamic Republic,” the Russian minister said.
Looking at Yandex.ir, an official reportedly working for IRIB purchased the website according to a domain registration search. DomainTools, a portal which lists the owners of websites, says Mohammad Taghi Mozooni already registered the domain address back in July. Yandex is currently operating in Russia, other CIS countries and Turkey. In October, it signed a deal with Microsoft based on which every Windows 10 device in these countries will have Yandex as a default search engine and homepage.
