Emil Sutovsky

CEO of FIDE

“Our plans have not changed. We are in the final stages of preparing the Candidates Tournament. Of course, we are monitoring the situation. Cyprus is not too far from, let’s say, the war zone or conflict zone, but at the same time, it is not directly involved in any way and is not in a state of war.

There is no emergency situation or anything like that. Of course, about ten days ago there were some worrying news, but since then the situation has appeared quite calm.

But we are, of course, not just hoping that nothing will happen. We are constantly monitoring the situation and also staying in contact with the state authorities who are assisting us with everything related to the tournament.

As I mentioned earlier, this event is not just some chess tournament in Cyprus. The government fully understands the status of this event and its importance. The President of the country is scheduled to personally open the tournament on March 28.

We are considering various scenarios, even the most unlikely ones. But we firmly believe that the current situation provides no grounds or reasonable reasons to postpone the date or move the tournament from Cyprus.

Could something happen? Possibly. But at the moment, we don’t see anything even remotely dangerous enough to consider moving it.”