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Japan: No US base decision before Obama visit

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-22 17:13

US Air Force's F-16 aircrafts prepare to take off at Kadena US Air Force Base on Japan's southwestern island of Okinawa June 15, 2009. [Agencies]

TOKYO: Japan said on Thursday it could not sign off on a planned reorganisation of US troops in the country before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo next month, after the US defense secretary bluntly called for the deal to be implemented.

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said there was not enough time to make a decision before Obama travelled to Tokyo.

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Friction over the military realignment pact could be the first big test of ties between the United States and Japan's new government, which has pledged to steer a diplomatic course less dependent on its closest security ally.

The Yomiuri newspaper said US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Okada on Tuesday that Japan should decide before Obama's November 12-13 visit to go ahead with a plan to move a US Marine air base on Okinawa in southern Japan to a less crowded part of the island.

"It won't be the case that in such a short period of time we will accept what the United States is saying and do it just because it is an agreement between Japan and the United States," Okada told private broadcaster TBS.

A broad deal to reorganise US forces in Japan was agreed in 2006 between Washington and Japan's long-dominant conservative party, which was ousted by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party in an August election.

Central to the deal is a plan to move the functions of the Futenma air base to northern Okinawa, while shifting 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to the US territory of Guam, partly at Japan's expense. Japan is host to about 47,000 US military personnel as part of the decades-old security alliance.

Hatoyama had said he wants the base moved off the island, where many complain about crime, noise, pollution and accidents associated with US bases, but US officials have ruled that out, saying it would undermine broader security arrangements.

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