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Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian will participate in the 2021 Grand Chess Tour, which returns after its cancellation last year due to the global pandemic. Aronian will play under the Armenian flag, according to the players' profiles on the official website of the tournament. 

Aronian  will join nine other world elite as full-tour participants in the 2021 GCT schedule, which  features two classical tournaments with prize funds of $325,000 each, including the kickoff event in Romania in June and the tour finale Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis in August.

To remind, in February GM Levon Aronian announced his decision to leave Armenia and switch to the U.S. due to “broken promises” by the current authorities. “After waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of the incumbent authorities for more than a year, I realized that I had to make a breakthrough decision to leave my native country,” he said, stating every year of expecting change is a waste of time in his career.