The United States and Japan on Tuesday agreed to drop a 2014 deadline for building a new airstrip on Okinawa and transferring about 8,000 US Marines from that Japanese island to Guam, top officials said in a statement. "Completion of the FRF (Futenma Replacement Facility) and the Marine relocation will not meet the previously targeted date of 2014," the two allies said in a statement following cabinet-level talks in Washington.
They vowed to complete the projects "at the earliest possible date after 2014." The widely anticipated delay in the troop realignment was announced after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates hosted Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa for annual Security Consultative Committee talks.
Tokyo and Washington 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 the US troops in Japan. But successive Tokyo governments have yet to win support for that plan from local residents of Okinawa, who associate US bases with noise, pollution and crime. Japan's March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor disaster has caused further delays in decision-making in Tokyo.
"The decision announced today on the Futenma replacement facility configuration along with other elements of the 2006 realignment roadmap shows we are making steady progress toward modernising US forward presence in the region," Gates said. "It is critical that we move forward with the relocation of Futenma and the construction of facilities in Guam for the US Marines. ... Doing so will reduce the impact of our presence on local residents in Okinawa while allowing us to maintain capabilities critical to the alliance in Japan," he said. Kitazawa said the Japanese government would continue to work to build consensus on Futenma with the Okinawa government and residents.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.