Thu, Oct 27, 2005
Resolves Stickiest Military Issue Between Two Allies
It threatened to become
a much hotter issue in military relations between the US and Japan
-- but a deal reached Wednesday means the Marine aviation unit
stationed Futenma, Okinawa, will move to another base on the
island.
That could be the beginning of a much wider realignment of the
50,000 US troops stationed on the Japanese island.
"There was a sense of emergency that not reaching agreement on
the issue, a central part of the US-Japan relationship, would
seriously damage relations," Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura
told reporters. He was quoted by the Washington Post.
Those relations are seen by Washington as especially important
now, given the phenomenal growth of China and the threat posed by
North Korea. The US has pushed for much quicker resolution on
issues that divide the two allies, but expressed surprise at the
current slow pace of negotiations.
"We have to realize that we no longer have the luxury of
interminable dialogue over parochial issues," said Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless at a Tokyo conference
sponsored by the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute.
He, too, was quoted by the Post.
"If we are to bring the alliance to where it needs to be in the
21st century, then we need to dramatically accelerate, across the
board, to make up for the time lost to indecision, indifference and
procrastination."
Moving the air operations currently housed at Futenma has been a
thorn in relations between the US and Japan since 1996, when
officials decided to shut down the base after three US servicemen
raped a Japanese schoolgirl. It blossomed into a roadblock in US
efforts to give its military forces stationed in Japan a wider role
in responding to hot spots throughout Asia. Although the compromise
was hailed by both sides as a breakthrough, important details
remained to be ironed out.
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