UNESCO is going to include chess in the educational and cultural programme. We have opened the International Women's Grand Prix together with the heads of the United Nations in Geneva two years ago. We plan to hold the Peace matches now.
The first one will take place at the 38th parallel, where the demarcation line runs between North and South Korea. This was my personal proposal: a hundred children from Seoul and Pyongyang should play a Match of Peace.
Alternatively, there could be a match between Israel and Palestine, where the six meter-high wall is being built. Why should they build a wall? We would like to put thousands of chess tables, and thousands of children would play chess. I held talks with the President Mahmoud Abbas and with Israeli leaders. We are working on it now.
We intend to organize chess matches between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Transnistria and Moldova. We try to make everyone sit down at the chess tables in many hot spots. We support everything but war. I recently sent a letter to the US Presidential Candidate Donald Trump headed with: "Chess as an alternative to weapons".
- What was the reaction of Trump?
- Let me point out a few interesting facts: several articles have been already published in the United States, which said that two of the greatest chess players would fight in November, and analysed the possibility of match between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
We suggested that Trump should present a hundred chessboards to the American schools for the implementation of FIDE programme "Chess in Schools". We also would like Trump to present chess sets to one of the units at the Pentagon. That is, we are trying to draw the public attention to chess in the United States.