Libyan TV broadcasts new footage of Gaddafi
Libyan TV broadcasts new footage of Gaddafi
TRIPOLI | Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:25pm EDT
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan state television on Sunday broadcast pictures of leader Muammar Gaddafi meeting the president of the international chess federation.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also a Russian provincial governor, as saying he played a game of chess in Tripoli Sunday with Gaddafi.
He said the Libyan leader told him he had no intention of leaving the country.
Source: http://www.reuters.com
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
MOSCOW — President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi told him over a game of chess in Tripoli on Sunday he had no plans to stand down or leave his country.
As fighting between Kadhafi’s forces and Libyan insurgents raged across western Libya, the Russian eccentric who once claimed he hosted extraterrestrials, also sat down for a game of chess with Kadhafi’s eldest son Muhammad and the two played the Sicilian defense, Russia’s Interfax news agency said.
“The meeting [with Moamer Kadhafi] lasted around two hours, we played some chess with Kadhafi,” Ilyumzhinov, who is on a visit to Tripoli in his capacity as FIDE president, told Interfax.
“Kadhafi stated that he is not going to leave Libya, stressing that it is his motherland and a land where his children and grandchildren died. He also said that he does not understand which post he needs to step down from.”
“I am neither premier nor president nor king. I do not hold any post in Libya and therefore I have no position which I should give up,” Ilyumzhinov quoted Kadhafi as telling him.
Ilyumzhinov, who also met with foreign and education ministers, said he saw a lot of destruction in Tripoli.
He expressed his condolences to Kadhafi over the death of his son and grandchildren and said he was shown a house hit by five bombs where the leader’s family members died.
More here.
Who won?
Is it really beneficial to associate with Gaddafi at this moment in time, if any, when Gaddafi seems absolutely doomed? Nothing against diplomacy of course, just at the moment now Russia seems finally as keen as everyone else to achieve cordial relations with the rebels. Not that Ilyumzhinov represents Russia nowadays. So what is the gain for the chess federation to support Gaddafi’s propaganda?
Birds of a feather.
Nothing surprising about this.
From the smiles it seems to a have ended in a premature draw. What ever happened to the Sofia rules?
This is the news most absurd and unrealistic that I could read.
Best regards
Stef
“So what is the gain for the chess federation to support Gaddafi’s propaganda?”
It’s just a support of fair play.
What a joke. FIDE is totally discredited.
I think the chessworld has lost it’s credebility a long time ago already.
The chesswolrd has lost it’s credibility a long time ago.
you know you are the odd duck out when you appear in a headline with Gaddafi and you are labeled the eccentric!
The chessworld has lost it’s credibility a long time ago.
Ilyumzhinov must resign.
“”So what is the gain for the chess federation to support Gaddafi’s propaganda?”
It’s just a support of fair play.”
I can’t see how that could be. People seldom just visit countries in civil war, nor do they make public displays with their leaders without the implication of support. It is known Russian politics tend to always support existing regimes and oppose outside interference, one must assume Ilyumzhinov did this for non-chessic reasons.
However I can’t see how supporting such regimes helps chess when this event is pretty much the only headline chess makes in western media. Is he going to play with Mugabe next? The beloved leader of North Korea, who no doubt, when not composing operas and flying jet planes, is in secret a very strong grandmaster? People who have no qualms to slaughtering their own citizens.
Well, politics aside, I think he misuses is position.