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Japan finalising US base relocation proposal

Posted on: Sat March 27, 2010

TOKYO: Japan is still seeking to move a contentious American military base off the southern island of Okinawa and will finalise its proposal for Washington by the end of March, the prime minister said on Friday. Officials have considered various options but will boil them down to one proposal to resolve the dispute by May as promised, Yukio Hatoyama told a news conference. The sprawling US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma air field has become a contentious issue between the allies. Okinawans have long protested the heavy US military presence on the island, which hosts more than half the 47,000 US troops in Japan under a security pact.

To lighten Okinawa s load, Tokyo and Washington in 2006 agreed to move the Futenma air field to a less crowded part of the island, and move 8,000 Marines from the island to the Pacific island of Guam. But Hatoyama s coalition government has been reviewing the relocation site agreed by the previous conservative government, and is divided over calls for the base to move off the island altogether.

Courtesy : The News