FIDE Vice President GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili fired back at GM Nigel Short for his recent comments:

I am fond of my profession, and of chess players. For all my conscious life I have been trying to make everything favorable for them. I think that the Calvia incident is proof enough that I do care for the protection of their interests and for the prestige of chess!

I am one of FIDE’s leaders and a friend and a team member of FIDE President Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (who has done a great deal for chess), but I am free in my decisions. It is important to have a clear conscience. It has been this way until now and it will be the same way in the future. This is my credo, and I hope that the favorable progress which is observed by establishment of “Global Chess” will make FIDE’s decisions better and effective, and that its work will change to the benefit of chess.

As for the urgent problem which your webpage has been actively covering recently, I think that it should be jointly decided by all of us – it is that serious. As a lyrical digression I would like to add that there are many places in the world where people do not have electric power, not to mention the Internet and modern technology. So let us hold the most prestigious world competitions in such places – both we and chess players will calm down! Everybody will know that they are playing against an individual human opponent and not a machine or any group. Of course in this case a big show will be out of the question, and no prize fund will be offered, to avoid offending local population. But still – the end justifies the means!

GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili
FIDE Vice President

The full letter was published on ChessBase and can be read here.

Here is the article about cheating in the Washington Times by David Sands.

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