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.

FMI: www.defenselink.mil