Libyan TV broadcasts new footage of Gaddafi

Libyan state television on Sunday broadcast pictures of leader Muammar Gaddafi meeting the president of the international chess federation. Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as saying he played a game of chess in Tripoli Sunday with Gaddafi. He said the Libyan leader told him he had no intention of leaving the country. Source: Reuters.

According to Russia's Interfax news agency the FIDE President sat down for a game of chess with Kadhafi's eldest son Muhammad, with the two playing the Sicilian Defense. Ilyumzhinov, who is on a visit to Tripoli in his capacity as FIDE president and as part of FIDE’s “Year of Africa”, said that Kadhafi had stated that he is not going to leave Libya, stressing that it is his motherland and a land where his children and grandchildren died. He also said that he does not understand which post he needs to step down from. "I am neither premier nor president nor king. I do not hold any post in Libya and therefore I have no position which I should give up," Ilyumzhinov quoted Kadhafi as telling him. Source: Gazeta.

Ilyumzhinov has a seven-year cordial relationship with Gaddafi, who in 2004 sponsored the FIDE World Chess Championship in Tripoli.

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