3 December 2015
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov Reacts to U.S. Sanctions
The president of FIDE answers our questions.
“Kirsan Nikolaevich, what can you say about the U.S. sanctions imposed on you?”
“I, like everybody else in the civilized world, reject the practice of one-sided sanctions, consider them unlawful and unacceptable.”
“Why in your opinion the U.S. Department of Treasury decided to take such measures?”
“These sanctions are also badly thought out and lacking any proof. One can easily get an impression that the reason behind them is my international activity as a FIDE president.”
“USA accuses you of meeting with the Syrian president Bashar Assad, is that correct?”
“My main mission as a president of FIDE is promotion and development of chess all over the world. Doing this work, we make no exceptions based on race, nation, or anything else. Being on a mission, I am visiting many countries – in 2012, for example, I visited about 100 countries. This included an official visit to Syria, where I met the country president, doctor Bashar Assad, as well as the ministers of education and sport. We discussed exclusively the issues of chess development in Syria, including introduction of chess into the school curriculum in the country. One of the things we agreed upon during that visit was FIDE providing a 1,000 chess sets for Syrian children.”
“U.S. Department of Treasure insists that you were involved in negotiations of oil trade in Syria.”
“Contrary to what they stated, I neither have nor ever had any commercial interests in Syria. I do not do any agency work in oil trade for any state, company or individual. I never discussed this problem with either Syrian president or any other Syrian citizen.”
“Will these sanctions affect your international activity?”
“The so-called sanctions can harm my chess development activity all over the world, including the U.S. For instance, we are planning to organize a World Chess Championship in the U.S. in November 2016, therefore I am planning to visit Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York in the next few says to inspect the candidate cities and meet potential sponsors.”
“Are you prepared for a dialogue with the U.S. Treasury?”
“If necessary, I am ready to meet the U.S. Treasure representatives and proved all the information required to resolve the issue.”
About the sanctions
Restrictive measures against FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov were introduced on Wednesday, November 25, because he was “materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the Government of Syria, Central Bank of Syria,” the U.S. Department of Treasury said in a statement.
The former head of Russia’s Republic of Kalmykia has been linked to financial transactions involving companies associated with another sanctioned person – Syrian businessman, Mudalal Khuri – since 1997, the statement said.
The Russian Financial Alliance Bank, which is co-owned by Ilyumzhinov and Khuri, was also blacklisted by Washington, Russia Today reports.
Ilyumzhinov confirmed to RIA-Novosti that he “visits Syria frequently” and has met with President Bashar Assad, but said that he was surprised to find himself on the sanctions list.
“I think it’s wrong when the Treasury Department allows one to visit some countries, and forbids another from doing the same,” he said.
The FIDE president said that he visits around a hundred countries annually, adding that “there’s no politics in chess; we promote our sport in many states and talk to everybody.”
Ilyumzhinov called his inclusion on the sanctions list a “provocation” as it comes ahead of his American visit on Monday, which will determine the city which is to provide the venue for the Chess World Championships, hosted by the US.
“I have no plans of canceling my trip,” he said. “If they have any questions, I’m eager to answer them. I’m ready to meet with US Department of Treasury representatives in New York or Washington.”
"I want to emphasize that I have never had any kind of commercial interests in Syria or Iran," he told Russia's Interfax news agency.
It should be noted that the idea of imposing sanctions on "people from Mr. Filatov's list" was first suggested by the 13th World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov during the FIDE Congress in Tromso, Norway.
