USA/Japan — U.S., Japan Agree to Relocate Air Base on Okinawa

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2010 — The Unit­ed States and Japan agreed yes­ter­day to relo­cate a con­tro­ver­sial U.S. air base to a less dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed area on the Japan­ese island of Oki­nawa.

The future of Marine Corps Air Sta­tion Futen­ma had been a sub­ject of intense polit­i­cal debate in Japan that led to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the base being moved off the island entire­ly, despite a 2006 agree­ment to relo­cate it on Okinawa. 

Talks between Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton and Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates for the Unit­ed States and For­eign Min­is­ter Kat­suya Oka­da and Defense Min­is­ter Toshi­mi Kitaza­wa for Japan addressed a range of secu­ri­ty con­cerns and yield­ed sub­stan­tial agree­ment, offi­cials said. 

For years, Oki­nawans have said they car­ry the major­i­ty of the bur­den of host­ing Amer­i­can forces in Japan, and the agree­ment vows “to reduce the impact on local com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing in Oki­nawa, there­by pre­serv­ing a sus­tain­able U.S. mil­i­tary pres­ence in Japan,” accord­ing to a joint state­ment issued by the secu­ri­ty and con­sul­ta­tive committee. 

“The [com­mit­tee] mem­bers expressed their shared com­mit­ments to relo­cate Marine Corps Air Sta­tion Futen­ma and return the base to Japan as part of the alliance trans­for­ma­tion and realign­ment process,” the state­ment said. 

Oth­er realign­ment ini­tia­tives — includ­ing the relo­ca­tion of about 8,000 Marines and 9,000 fam­i­ly mem­bers from Oki­nawa to Guam — depend on com­ple­tion of the Futen­ma replace­ment facil­i­ty. The relo­ca­tion to Guam will return of most of the U.S. facil­i­ties south of Kade­na Air Base to Japan. 

“Bear­ing this in mind, the two sides intend to ver­i­fy and val­i­date that this Futen­ma relo­ca­tion plan appro­pri­ate­ly con­sid­ers fac­tors such as safe­ty, oper­a­tional require­ments, noise impact, envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns and effects on the local com­mu­ni­ty,” accord­ing to the statement. 

The agree­ment con­firms that the replace­ment facil­i­ty will be at the Camp Schwab Henoko-saki area and adja­cent waters. The min­is­ters put an end-of-August dead­line for com­ple­tion of a study of the replace­ment facility’s loca­tion, con­fig­u­ra­tion and con­struc­tion method. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion will be com­plet­ed by the time of the next secu­ri­ty con­sul­ta­tive con­fer­ence, offi­cials said. 

The com­mit­tee also looked at ways to mit­i­gate the bur­den that Oki­nawans bear. The two sides com­mit­ted to expand the relo­ca­tion of U.S. forces train­ing activ­i­ties off the island. Japan­ese mil­i­tary facil­i­ties and areas in main­land Japan may also be used. “Both sides also com­mit­ted to exam­ine the relo­ca­tion of train­ing out­side of Japan, such as to Guam,” the state­ment said. 

The committee’s state­ment rec­og­nizes that the alliance remains indis­pens­able not only to the defense of Japan, but also to the peace, secu­ri­ty, and pros­per­i­ty of the Asia-Pacif­ic region. The talks were con­duct­ed in the shad­ow of North Korea sink­ing a South Kore­an war­ship in March. The ten­sions in the region have increased, offi­cials not­ed, and also reaf­firmed the need for the Mutu­al Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion Treaty between the Unit­ed States and Japan. 

In light of the uncer­tain­ty of the sit­u­a­tion in Korea, the talks reaf­firmed the U.S. com­mit­ment to Japan’s security. 

“Japan recon­firmed its com­mit­ment to play­ing a pos­i­tive role in con­tribut­ing to the peace and sta­bil­i­ty of the region,” the state­ment said. “Fur­ther­more, the [com­mit­tee] mem­bers rec­og­nized that a robust for­ward pres­ence of U.S. mil­i­tary forces in Japan, includ­ing in Oki­nawa, pro­vides the deter­rence and capa­bil­i­ties nec­es­sary for the defense of Japan and for the main­te­nance of region­al stability.” 

The min­is­ters also pledged a “Green Alliance” between the nations on bases, and said both nations would be good envi­ron­men­tal stew­ards. The two sides intend to study oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand the shared use of facil­i­ties between U.S. and Japan­ese forces, which would con­tribute to clos­er bilat­er­al oper­a­tional coor­di­na­tion, improved inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and stronger rela­tions with local com­mu­ni­ties, offi­cials said. 

The min­is­ters also affirmed their inten­tion “to inten­si­fy com­mu­ni­ca­tion with com­mu­ni­ties in Oki­nawa on issues of con­cern relat­ed to the pres­ence of U.S. forces.” The two sides com­mit­ted to explore coop­er­a­tion in such areas as infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives, cul­tur­al exchanges, edu­ca­tion pro­grams and research partnerships. 

The min­is­ters agreed to inten­si­fy their ongo­ing bilat­er­al secu­ri­ty dia­logue. “This secu­ri­ty dia­logue will address tra­di­tion­al secu­ri­ty threats, as well as focus on new areas for coop­er­a­tion,” the state­ment said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →