US army base transfer in Japan delayed

(L-R) Japan's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hold a joint press conference at the Department of State June 21, 2011 in Washington।

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/185741.html

The United States and Japan have acknowledged dropping a 2014 deadline for the relocation of an American military base on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

“Completion of the FRF (Futenma Replacement Facility) and the Marine relocation will not meet the previously targeted date of 2014,” the US and Japan said in a joint statement following a high level meeting in Washington on Tuesday.

The meeting involved US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, Reuters reported.

The future of the base has been a major source of friction between the United States and Japan.

Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 to shift the US Marines' Futenma airbase in Okinawa to a less crowded area on the island, which is host to about half of the 47,000 US troops in the East Asian country.

But Tokyo has failed to win local backing for its plan to relocate the American base on the island.

Many of Okinawa's residents are demanding the removal of the military base from the island altogether.

Japan hosts some 47,000 US troops under a post-World War Two treaty.

Japan, US drop Okinawa base relocation

US Marines' Futenma airbase in Okinawa, Japan.(file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/178664.html

Japan and the United States have cancelled a formerly-approved plan for relocating the controversial American airbase on Okinawa Island by 2014.

According to Japanese media, Washington and Tokyo will discuss a new timeframe for the relocation of US Marines' Futenma airbase, Reuters reported on Friday.

The issue of US military bases on the southern Japanese island has long strained relations between the two countries. Last year, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan promised to implement a 2006 agreement to shift the American airbase to a less populated part of Okinawa.

The failure to implement the 2006 deal sustained a hefty blow to Kan's predecessor Yukio Hatoyama, who was forced to resign in 2010 after facing public pressure and outrage over the issue.

The two sides had agreed in 2006 to transfer the facility from the residential district of Ginowan to the coastal and less populated area of Henoko in Nago, Okinawa.

However, that plan is also facing strong opposition from local residents who see the base as a source of crime, accidents and noise.

Former US National Security Adviser James Johns says the best possible choice is the integration of Futenma air base with another US base in Kadena town in southern Okinawa.

Johns said in a Friday meeting in Washington with Mikio Shimoji, secretary general of Japan's ruling party, that the relocation plan was not feasible on account of expected environmental destruction in the area.