The US and Japan have agreed to share the cost of relocating US troops from Japan to Guam, the Japanese defense chief announced, according to Japanese media.
"We agreed," Japanese public broadcaster NHK and Jiji Press quoted Fukishiro Nukaga as saying after he emerged from the US defense department on Sunday.
Nukaga did not offer any details about the deal, while the Pentagon declined to comment.
PHOTO: AP
Nukaga had flown to Washington for talks with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on the dispute, which has held up the completion of plans for a major realignment of the US military presence in Japan.
The head of the Japanese Defense Agency had said late on Friday that "slight differences" remain over the matter, Japanese media reported.
"But our talks have reached the stage where we have to narrow the gap and find common ground," he added.
After shaking hands with Nukaga, Rumsfeld said: "The understandings we've come to suggest to me that it will continue where there is a close and important alliance between our two countries."
"We have come to an understanding that we both feel is in the best interest to our countries," he said in a televised interview.
The US has bowed to demands to relocate 8,000 Marines from Okinawa island to a base on Guam.
But the two countries are at odds over how to split the cost, which the US has estimated at about US$10 billion.
Washington reportedly wants the Japanese government to pay about 75 percent of the cost -- some US$7.5 billion.
Japan had initially offered US$3 billion, including US$2.5 billion for building houses for soldiers and their families.
But press reports said Tokyo might offer extra money as loans or grants.
The US troop changes are part of a sweeping reorganization of US forces throughout East Asia.
There are more than 40,000 US troops in Japan, more than half of them in the Okinawa chain, where islanders have long demanded a reduced US presence.
This is the first time Japan covers costs of military facilities of the US troops abroad.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told reporters "we decided to cover the payment amid the need to accelerate reducing Okinawa's burden," Jiji Press reported from Tokyo.
Reducing the burden of Japan-ese southern islands of Okinawa, which hosts half of the US troops in Japan, has been one of agenda in the relocation plan.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia