Gaddafi plays chess with a Russian visitor

Moscow: As the world awaits Muammar Gaddafi's next move, the Libyan leader has been playing chess with the visiting Russian head of the World Chess Federation.

The federation is headed by the eccentric Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who until last year was the leader of Russia's predominantly Buddhist republic of Kalmykia. He once claimed to have visited an alien spaceship.

Libyan state television showed Gaddafi, dressed all in black and wearing dark sunglasses, playing chess Sunday evening with his Russian guest.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Ilyumzhinov as saying Gaddafi told him he has no intention of leaving Libya despite international pressure as rebels with NATO air support fight to end his 40-year rule.

It was unclear where the chess game took place. Gaddafi's compound in the center of Tripoli has been under NATO bombardment and was hit again Sunday.

Gaddafi had not been seen in public since mid-May, and Ilyumzhinov told him how pleased he was to find him healthy and well.

Before leaving for Tripoli, Ilyumzhinov contacted Russian presidential envoy Mikhail Margelov, who is trying to mediate in Libya's civil war.

Margelov said he advised Ilyumzhinov "to play white E2-E4 (a chess opening) and to make it clear to Gaddafi that his strategy goes to the end game," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Russia has joined the West in urging Gaddafi to step down, and Margelov said while visiting the rebel stronghold of Benghazi last week that the Libyan leader had lost his legitimacy.

Ilyumzhinov appeared to ignore the advice. Allowing Gaddafi to play white, he seemed to be showing him how to begin the game and then called it a draw.

"I offered to draw, because it's not polite to win when you're a guest, " Interfax quoted Ilyumzhinov as saying Monday.

The two men have known each other since at least 2004, when the chess federation, known by its French acronym, FIDE, held its world championship in Tripoli.

Ilyumzhinov, a wealthy businessman, had been the leader of Kalmykia from 1993 until he stepped down last October.