Japan Press Weekly

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2009 February 25 - March 3 [OKINAWA]

Some U.S. Marines in Okinawa will move to Guam but other Marines may come in: U.S. official

The promise that Okinawa’s burden of the U.S. military presence in Japan will be reduced may not be met, said Iha Yoichi, mayor of Ginowan City, which hosts the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station.

He stated this in a meeting with Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on February 24 based on what he was told by a U.S. official.

Iha revealed that Raymond Greene, a secretary in charge of political-military affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Japan, on February 23 hinted that even after 8,000 U.S. Marines and their families move from Okinawa to Guam, the U.S. Forces will continue to retain the present U.S. military housing complex in Okinawa because U.S. military personnel and their families may be brought in from other places.

The Ginowan mayor said, “Wasn’t the plan to relocate them (a part of the U.S. Marines in Okinawa) to Guam intended to reduce Okinawa’s burden (of U.S. bases)? The United States should make public all the plans concerning the relocation.”

Meanwhile, the government on February 24 submitted to the Diet for approval an agreement on the relocation of U.S. Marines in Okinawa to Guam, signed on February 17 by Japan’s Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The agreement requires Diet approval because its implementation involves the use of Japan’s tax money.

Japan has agreed to pay about 6.1 billion dollars, which is about 60 percent of the total costs to build new facilities for U.S. Marines in Guam.