
1000 София, ул.
А. Кънчев 11, тел/факс
0035929816160
To Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov,
President of FIDE
Dear Kirsan Nikolaevich,
On the 15 December 2006, the
number one on the FIDE World Ranking List, Bulgarian Grand Master Veselin
Topalov, sent you a letter expressing his wish to challenge the FIDE World
Champion Vladimir Kramnik in a match for the title in March/April 2007,
according to the FIDE regulations.
For that purpose, an Organizing
Committee was established in Bulgaria, where the Minister of the Interior
Rumen Petkov, the President of the State Agency for Youth and Sport Vessela
Lecheva, the Executive Director of Mobiltel Nikolay Nikolov,
as well as Martin Batkov, Member of the Board of Standart Daily and Anatoly
Paziyski and Ertan Kara, advisors to the President of the Republic of
Bulgaria George Parvanov, are members.
The President of the Republic
of Bulgaria, H.E. George Parvanov, also expressed his support for the
contest. The Organizing Committee initiated the process of issue of Bank
Guarantee for the match at the D Commerce Bank. The Bank
sent FIDE a letter confirming their intent to issue a bank guarantee.
It was not clear from the reply that FIDE bank had some special requirements
as to the bank which would issue the document.
A few days ago,on 11 January
2007, however, the Organizing Committee understood that FIDE had not heard
of D Commerce Bank, which was ready to issue a bank guarantee
for 2 Million US Dollar (the prize fund and the organizational expenses)
and will not recognize the document. From the letter FIDE sent we understood
that the bank of the International Chess Organization will only accept
bank guarantees from four Bulgarian banks – DSK, Bulbank, UBB and
International Asset Bank.
We are astonished with this
decision because it means that we have to initiate negotiations with a
different bank, which will require quite some time. With this letter FIDE
show no respect to our Organizing Committee ,our President and our country.
We are very surprised by FIDE’s
approach, because there are no requirements as to the bank in the rules
of the International Federation. We deem the last decision an attempt
to jeopardize the match in Sofia.
Wijk aan Zee,
15 January 2007 |
Sincerely, |
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Silvio Danailov,
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