(NEW YORK) MintPress — Just days before Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is to meet President Barack Obama in Washington, the two countries have, after months of bilateral talks, finally reached an agreement on moving U.S. Marines off the island of Okinawa.
Nearly half of the 19,000 Marines currently stationed in Okinawa will be relocated, with some 5,000 re-deploying to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and 4,000 going to other locations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Hawaii and Australia.
No timeline for the $8.6 billion move — of which Japan will pay $3.1 billion — was given.
Japan currently pays about $2.3 billion a year to host nearly 50,000 American military personnel and 43,000 dependents as part of a 52-year security treaty. More than 75 percent of the bases are on Okinawa, about 950 miles south of the capital, Tokyo .
In a joint statement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Foreign minister Koichiro Gemba and Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka said the accord is designed to help reduce the burden on the residents of the island.
The agreement “continues to provide the deterrence and capabilities necessary for the defense of Japan and for the maintenance of peace, security and economic security in the Asia-Pacific region,” said the statement.
The deal comes after negotiations involving complex political, financial, technical and infrastructural issues. While it is being hailed as a major diplomatic accomplishment, it still faces many challenges.
“I don’t think it was inevitable that they would be able to make a meeting of the minds of that sort, so that is the good news,” said political analyst and adjunct senior fellow Richard Baker at the East West Center in Hawaii. “Now the bad news is that the public handling of this has got to be as sensitive as the negotiations were and as nuanced.”
Unresolved issues
The agreement isn’t likely to satisfy the residents of the densely populated Okinawan city of Ginowan, who for years have called for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Stateion Futenma to leave their neighborhood.
Local opposition to the U.S. military presence stems from disturbances such as plane noise and drunk Marines roaming the streets at night to fatal traffic accidents and several cases of sexual assault. There were massive protests on the island in 1995 after three servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old girl.
That led to a 2006 deal under which 8,600 troops would be moved off the island by 2014 and Futenma would be relocated to a new site at Camp Schwab in a more remote part of Okinawa. But many residents there don’t want more marines nearby and are worried about the environmental impact on the ecologically important stretch of coastline.
The local government has in fact refused to host the new base, and Tokyo has not been able to devise a viable way to push the move forward.
The standoff has been a great source of tension between Japan and the U.S. at a potentially volatile time in the region, highlighted by North Korea’s recent rocket launch and the prospect of a third nuclear test by Pyongyang as well as concern over China’s military spending and naval buildup.
Earlier this year, President Obama announced a shift in U.S. military priorities towards Asia after more than a decade of wars in the Middle East. At the same time, Washington agreed to de-link the issues of moving the Marines off Okinawa and relocating the Futenma base.
Security concerns
The East West Center’s Richard baker, a retired U.S. diplomat, says that repositioning troops from Okinawa to Guam and Hawaii may be seen as a move in the wrong direction.
“Critics will be tempted to say that this belies the intended pivot to Asia,” he acknowledges. But, he contends, “I think that would be an unfair criticism given the realities of the negotiations and the realities of the very, very long standing problem in Okinawa that this is designed to solve.”
Still, the U.S. Congress may reject any plan to move Marines from Japan until the Department of Defense submits an independent assessment of its strategic posture in the Asia-Pacific region, said three senators in a letter to Panetta on April 24.
Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin ( D-Mich.), Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia), who heads a subcommittee, and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the panel, said in a statement after the the accord was announced that “we still have many questions about the specific details” and “will also continue to await the findings and recommendations of the independent assessment.”
The study is due to be finished in late June.