Bobby Fischer, Iceland's newest citizen?

TOKYO, March 16 (UPI) -- Japan's top immigration official said Wednesday U.S. chess legend Bobby Fischer could be deported to Iceland if the Scandinavian nation naturalized him.

The prospect of Icelandic citizenship may be Fischer's only chance of avoiding deportation to the United States, which wants him for allegedly breaking an economic sanction against Yugoslavia in 1992 by playing Russia's Boris Spassky, Kyodo said.

"Based on the interpretation of the immigration law, Mr. Fischer can go to Iceland if he is given citizenship by Iceland," Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social Democratic Party, said after a 40-minute meeting with Masaharu Miura, who runs the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau.