Japan, US to hold talks on US military realignment next week
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-07 09:19

Japan and the United States will hold talks in Washington next week on reconfiguring America's troop presence in Japan, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Senior foreign affairs and defense officials plan to discuss details of an interim plan adopted by the allies in October last year which includes a proposal to shift some U.S. Marines from Japan to Guam, the ministry said in a statement. The Pacific island of Guam is a U.S. territory about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) east of the Philippine capital, Manila.

Kazuyoshi Umemoto of the ministry's North American Affairs Bureau and Chisato Yamauchi of the Defense Agency's Defense Policy Bureau will meet Richard Lawless, U.S. Defense Deputy Undersecretary for Asia and Pacific Affairs, on January 11-12, the statement said.

Japanese and American defense chiefs will meet in mid-January to discuss the U.S. military realignment, according to a media report.

Kyodo News agency reported that Japanese Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga told a group of reporters Friday that he is making arrangements to hold talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on January 17.

An official of the Defense Agency could not confirm the report.

The reshuffling of U.S. bases in Japan is part of Washington's efforts to streamline its overseas military deployments. The U.S. also plans to relocate a heliport in Okinawa to another base on the southern island, and assign a nuclear-powered carrier to Japan for the first time.

American troops have been stationed in Japan since the end of World War II in 1945. The country hosts the largest contingent of U.S. Marines based overseas, Asia's largest U.S. air base and the only U.S. Navy fleet based overseas.