WASHINGTON ? The United States and Japan have reached agreement on a long-simmering dispute that calls for the American military to reduce the number of Marines on Okinawa by 9,000 and begin returning land to the government there, senior officials announced on Thursday.
The deal was presented by senior American officials as a victory for both sides: it offers the prospect of removing a chronic source of Japanese resentment and, in keeping with the Obama administration?s new focus on Asia, allows the Defense Department to free up ground forces for rotating deployments across the Pacific region, the officials said.
No time frame was announced for the redeployment, which would leave about 10,000 Marines on Okinawa. About 5,000 of those leaving will go to Guam, an American territory in the western Pacific, and a smaller number to Hawaii.
But with efforts to increase troop rotations and Navy ship visits ? including a plan for Marines to rotate through a base in Australia ? the overall American presence in the Asia-Pacific region will not decrease, and may grow in places at times, officials said.
The agreement on removing the Marines was made possible by separating those negotiations from another thorny issue. The Japanese have demanded that the United States move the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from an urban part of Okinawa to a less-populated spot in the north, at Camp Schwab.
Both sides remain committed to that plan, American officials said, but no details were given as to when it might happen.
The Japanese foreign minister, Koichiro Genba, said Friday morning that the agreement was ?a forward-looking and concrete one that prioritizes reducing the burden on Okinawa, including the return of land.?
One hope of the United States is that the transfer announced Thursday will increase acceptance for moving the Futenma base. Okinawa would remain host to Kadena Air Base, the largest American airfield in the region.
The movement to transfer forces was set off in 1996 by the gang rape of a local girl by Marines.
The agreement is ?a resounding victory for our bilateral alliance,? a senior State Department official said, discussing the deal on the condition of anonymity.
The official acknowledged the importance for the United States ?to reduce the impact? of its military presence on Okinawa as part of Washington?s goal to retain Japanese support.
Japan has pledged about $3.1 billion to the effort. The cost of moving the Marines when Futenma was part of the plan was estimated at $10.3 billion.
The Pentagon?s new security strategy, adopted this year as officials began planning for the first military budget cuts since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, envisions fewer permanent bases and more rotational deployments around the world. The goal is to find savings ? both in dollars and in the political capital required for sustaining permanent bases ? while maintaining a global presence.
With the personnel numbers for both the Marine Corps and the Army shrinking, the ground forces leaving Okinawa can be shifted throughout the Western Pacific as needed for any military contingencies, the Pentagon official said.
Pentagon officials said the ability to rotate forces along a wider belt in the Pacific would give the military greater agility in countering potential Chinese expansion while not diminishing deterrence on the Korean Peninsula.
Both officials said the administration had been consulting with leading members of Congress. But as the agreement neared completion this week, three members of the Armed Services Committee weighed in. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the panel; Senator John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican; and Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, wrote to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to raise what they said were ?serious questions that have not been fully addressed.?
Late Thursday, the senators released a statement saying they ?still have many questions about the specific details.? But they pledged to work to seek ?a mutually beneficial, militarily effective and fiscally sustainable agreement regarding the realignment of U.S. forces on Okinawa and Guam.?
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8491fa8aec776ae873d33d44ed55375b
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