The World : U.S. Accepts Soviet Pilot

A Soviet air force pilot who defected to Turkey in an advanced MIG-29 fighter was flown to the United States after American authorities agreed to grant him asylum, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in Ankara. Inal Batu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Capt. Alexander Zuyev was handed over to U.S. officials and left Turkey aboard a U.S. military plane. Zuyev landed the MIG-29 at the airport in the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon on May 20 and requested political asylum in the United States. Turkish officials sent the fighter plane back to the Soviet Union a day after the incident but refused Moscow’s request for the return of the pilot, whom the Soviets labeled a “criminal.”