Pakistan has boycotted its scheduled match against Israel at the 46th FIDE World Chess Olympiad 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, with the Chess Federation of Pakistan citing the country\u2019s policy towards Israel and solidarity with the Palestinian people.
\nThe Pakistan-Israel match was scheduled for Wednesday in the opening round of the prestigious international event. However, Pakistan declined to play against the Israeli team and did not take part in the scheduled match, said a press release.
\nChess Federation of Pakistan (CFP) President Syed Zeeshan Naqvi said Pakistan had a clear and consistent policy regarding Israel and that the federation could not participate in a match contrary to the government\u2019s policy.
\nNaqvi said the decision was also intended to convey a message of solidarity with the Palestinian people. \u201cWe have boycotted the match to express solidarity with the Palestinian people,\u201d he said.
\nHe further said Pakistan\u2019s participation in international sporting events would continue, but the federation would respect the Pakistan government\u2019s official position on Israel.
\nThe 46th FIDE World Chess Olympiad is being held in Samarkand from September 15 to 27, bringing together national
\nteams from around the world. The event features separate open and women\u2019s competitions, with more than 390 teams registered across the two sections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan has boycotted its scheduled match against Israel at the 46th FIDE World Chess Olympiad 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, with the Chess Federation of Pakistan citing the country\u2019s policy towards Israel and solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Pakistan-Israel match was scheduled for Wednesday in the opening round of the prestigious international event. However, Pakistan …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103092,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103076\/revisions\/103092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}