Today, 12 March 2007, the FIDE President has met the World Champion Vladimir Kramnik in Paris, France. Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov informed him on his decision in respect of the World Chess Championship cycle and decisions taken by the 1st quarter Presidential Board meeting held in Antalya, Turkey from 27 to 29 January 2007.

The World Champion has expressed his full support and mentioned that this decision is in absolute agreement with the historic tradition and modern requirements from the commercial and marketing point of view.

Vladimir Kramnik expressed his willingness to become more active in popularization of chess in mass media namely in Euro Sport Channel and FIDE programmes particularly, Chess in Schools programme.

He informed Mr. President on his future plans to participate in the forthcoming Melody Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament (Monte Carlo, Monaco), the Matches vs GM Peter Leko of Hungary in April and vs GM Levon Aronian of Armenia in May 2007.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Vladimir Kramnik exchanged the opinions in respect of time control and concurred that it is necessary to keep the 7 hours control for top level events and some traditional chess tournaments. For all other tournaments a new time control of 1 hour plus 10 seconds from move 1 for each player will be set up. The World Champion supported the idea. This proposal will be considered by the next Presidential Board meeting.