FIDE President steps down for his ties with ISIS

Baku. 7 December. REPORT.AZ/ After 20 years as the World Chess Federation (FIDE) President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov today withdrew from “any legal, financial and business operations of FIDE”. Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos will take over as acting president while Ilyumzhinov fights to get himself removed from the US Treasury Sanctions list over alleged transactions with Syria, Report informs referring to the Turkish media.

When the US announced sanctions against Kirsan Ilyumshinov on November 25, the FIDE President defiantly claimed it would be business as usual and he would keep an appointment to visit New York and other US cities in the coming week. To no-one’s great surprise, he never took that risk, and now at a hastily-arranged FIDE Presidential Board meeting in Athens today he offered to step down, temporarily, from his position as president. That was first revealed in a tweet by his personal assistant Berik Balgabaev.

Following the announcement by the US Department of the Treasury that the US levied sanctions against Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Russian citizen and FIDE President, Mr. Ilyumzhinov has informed the Presidential Board that he will withdraw from any legal, financial and business operations of FIDE until such time as Mr. Ilyumzhinov is removed from the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list.

Mr. Ilyumzhinov advised that he has initiated legal procedures in the US aiming to request additional information and reverse restrictive measures put by the US Department of the Treasury. During the next Presidential Board meeting, Mr. Ilyumzhinov will update the Board as to the progress of the legal procedures.