The current ccTLDs that have outlived their countries still exist because the retirement policy wasn’t finalized until 2022 and in all cases, ICANN has been moving towards retiring them.
You gave .su as an example for IANA not retiring ccTLDs, but the .su debacle is one of the major motivators behind their policy of retiring all ineligible ccTLDs.
ICANN could allow the .io domain to live on, but doing so would be a complete 180 from their current policy.
I don’t think that is how it works.
Some info on how these top level domains came into existence can be learned from this video
You’ll never guess the most popular internet country code
There are many ccTLD retained by ICAN after the country became non-existent. The Soviet Union is an example.
That is how it works.
The current ccTLDs that have outlived their countries still exist because the retirement policy wasn’t finalized until 2022 and in all cases, ICANN has been moving towards retiring them.
You gave .su as an example for IANA not retiring ccTLDs, but the .su debacle is one of the major motivators behind their policy of retiring all ineligible ccTLDs.
ICANN could allow the .io domain to live on, but doing so would be a complete 180 from their current policy.