US, Japan to split troop relocation cost

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, left, stands with Japanese Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga as he answers questions from the press following their afternoon meeting at the Pentagon on Sunday in Washington. PHOTO: AP

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.

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.