“I am a citizen of Kazakhstan!” — Timur Turlov Responds to Wadim Rosenstein’s Disqualification Request

Timur Turlov

President of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation

“I am a citizen of Kazakhstan, and the country I represent has long maintained respectful and constructive relations with everyone while staying out of confrontations. This is a consistent principle of Kazakhstan’s policy.

That matters for our chess community. FIDE brings together more than two hundred federations from very different circumstances, with very different views on many issues beyond the chessboard. The organization needs a leader who can speak to everyone and remain independent of outside interests. Kazakhstan gives me exactly that position, and I believe it is one of the strongest arguments for my candidacy.

I also bring to chess my experience of building institutions that operate to international standards. The company I founded and lead has grown into an advanced digital ecosystem operating across multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, Europe and Asia. Our partners include Nvidia, Citi, BNY Mellon, Baidu, Geely and others.

We are a public company, listed on one of the world’s leading stock exchanges. We report regularly to regulators and investors, undergo independent audits and disclose extensive information about our operations. Requirements of this kind are among the most demanding anywhere, and they apply whether or not anyone is asking. Those filings are public, and anyone in the world can look them up and read them.

They also set out basic facts about me, including my citizenship, and I sign them myself. In the United States, a false statement in such a document is not something the law forgives. Your record as head of a public company of this scale is scrutinized over many years by regulators, auditors, investors and other independent parties, and the results are public too.

That is the standard of governance I want to keep in FIDE as well. I am open to any question about myself, and my answers can be checked. But I would rather spend this campaign talking about what will shape the future of chess: the digital future of the game, chess in schools, and real opportunities for federations that today lack the resources to develop.

Chess deserves a debate about what really matters.”