AzerTag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
March 25 2004

CHESS FEDERATION OF GEORGIA AND GRAND MASTER JOBAVA APOLOGIZE TO
CHESS FEDERATION OF AZERBAIJAN
[March 25, 2004, 12:32:22]

As AzerTAj reported before, a chess tournament in memory of the ninth
world champion T. Petrossian was conducted in the so-called
`Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’.

After the Chess Federation of Azerbaijan /CFA/ sent a protest-letter
to the FIDE and CFA President, Milli Majlis deputy, international
grand master Aynur Sofiyeva telephoned to FIDE president K.
Ilumjinov, he notified Armenians that the tournament would not be
recognized by the FIDE and suggested that the tournament be stopped.

However, the Chess Federation of Armenia found a hypocritical excuse
by saying that the fax was allegedly out of order and the e-mail
opened after the tournament already began and finally announced that
the tournament was not organized by the federation at all.

Georgian grand master B. Jobava was included into the early list of
participants. However, after CFA sent a protest-letter to the Chess
Federation of Georgia /CFG/ it forbad B. Jobava to participate in the
tournament. In spite of this, he, however, went to Khankendi. Having
condemned his act CFG imposed a suspended sentence for two years and
deprived him of his state scholarship for 6 months. Besides, CFG
presented its apologies to the Chess Federation of Azerbaijan. Grand
B. Jobava sent a letter to CFA in which he asked to consider his
young age, lack of interest for the politics, admitted his guilt and
apologized.