TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will release former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted in the United States, so he can go to Iceland where he has been granted citizenship, Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday, quoting Japan's Justice Ministry.
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The United States -- where Fischer is wanted for violating sanctions against former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992 -- has said it was disappointed by Iceland's move and reiterated that Washington wanted Fischer handed over.
Fischer has been held in Japan since July, when he was arrested for traveling on what U.S. officials said was an invalid passport.
Justice Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.
Iceland's parliament had granted Fischer, 62, citizenship on Monday, opening the door for the fugitive American to settle in the tiny North Atlantic republic, where he won the world title in 1972 in a classic Cold War encounter with Soviet champion Boris Spassky, a victory that made him something of a hero in Iceland.
"The formal procedure is finished," Iceland's ambassador to Japan, Thordur Oskarsson, told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Mr Fischer is a true Icelander now."
Fischer has used a series of legal moves to fight deportation to the United States, including seeking refugee status, renouncing his U.S. citizenship and unveiling plans to marry his companion Miyoko Watai, a four-time Japan women's chess champion.
Oskarsson declined to predict whether Fischer would be able to leave for Iceland soon, but John Bosnitch, a Tokyo-based Fischer supporter, said he hoped that the former chess champion would be able to leave as early as Thursday.
U.S. DISAPPOINTED
Fischer's lawyer, Masako Suzuki, said later that proof of Fischer's Icelandic citizenship had been submitted to immigration authorities.
"As representatives of Bobby Fischer ... we strongly demand that Mr Fischer's prompt release and departure from the country at his own expense be approved, and that he be allowed to leave Japan," Suzuki said in a statement.
Japanese officials have said it was legally possible for Fischer to be deported to Iceland if he had citizenship there.
A spokesman for the Japanese government, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiken Sugiura, told a news conference only that Japan would make an "appropriate decision" in line with its immigration law and taking any U.S. requests into account.
The United States said on Tuesday that it was disappointed at its ally Iceland's decision to grant Fischer citizenship.
"We would like Mr. Fischer to return to the United States so that the charges that have been filed against him can be properly addressed through our legal system," Linda Hartley, spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Iceland's capital of Reykjavik, told Icelandic television channel RUV.
Iceland has long been a close ally of the United States, and as the only non-armed member of NATO depends on Washington for its military defense.
An aide to Icelandic Foreign Minister David Oddsson said the country was helping Fischer because of his "historical connection with Iceland."
Fischer disappeared after the 1992 match, in which he beat Spassky and pocketed $3 million, and did not resurface until after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
In an interview with a Philippine radio station, Fischer praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped out." Although born to a Jewish mother, Fischer has also stirred controversy with anti-Semitic remarks.
Chess legend Fischer leaves detention in Japan
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer will move from Japan to his new home of Iceland despite requests from the USA for his deportation to the US. Mr Fischer had been held in Japan since last July when he was arrested on what US officials claimed was an invalid US passport.  He was freed from detention on March 23 after 9 months in confinement.

Mr Fischer is wanted in the USA for violating Executive Order 12810, signed by then-President George H. W. Bush in 1992.  EO 12810 placed sanctions on the former Yugoslavia, where Mr Fischer played a chess match in 1992 against Boris Spassky.  If Mr Fischer had been sent to the US, he would have faced a ten year prison term.  The U.S. revoked his passport in 2003 and Mr Fischer was later arrested at Narita Airport while trying to leave Japan en route to the Philippines.

Following an appeal by Mr Fischer's supporters, the parliament of Iceland granted Mr Fischer an Icelandic passport on Monday. Mr Fischer won the world championship in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972, against Mr Spassky, then of the Soviet Union, and Mr Fischer remains popular among Icelanders.  (Mr Spassky became a French citizen in 1978).  The 1992 rematch was billed as as being for the "World Championship", although by then most chess fans recognized Garry Kasparov as the world's #1 player.

Iceland's ambassador to Japan, Thordur Oskarsson, said that the US government had sent a message of displeasure to the Icelandic government before its parliament passed the bill allowing for Mr Fischer's citizenship. Mr Oskarsson went on to say that, "Despite the message, the decision was put through Parliament on humanitarian grounds".