Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga on Saturday asked Foreign Minister Taro Kono for a drastic amendment of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement following a series of crimes and accidents involving U.S. military-related personnel in the southern Japan prefecture.
Kono only told Onaga that the government will try to reduce the local burden of the U.S. bases in Okinawa at a meeting held at the Okinawa government building in Naha. It was Kono's first visit to the island prefecture since assuming his post in August.
Okinawa hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan and a spate of crimes committed by soldiers and base personnel as well as accidents involving military aircraft have angered local residents. Recent incidents include the crash-landing of a U.S. military helicopter in October and the arrest of a Marine for an alleged drunken driving accident leading to the death of a resident last month.
"People in Okinawa have been shocked and are enduring significant anxiety," Onaga told Kono.
Onaga said the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement has been criticized by locals as being "unfair" as they view it as overly protective of U.S. service members and civilian base workers if they are implicated in crimes.
The Japanese government has been reluctant to revise the pact, which has never been revised since taking effect in 1960.
The governor also repeated his call for the central government to give up a plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a less populated, coastal area within Okinawa Island.
Kono said the central government is considering preparing allotted places at American schools located in U.S. military bases in Okinawa for Japanese students in the prefecture.
Tokyo is apparently hoping the proposed step to help Okinawa children improve their English language skills will contribute to cooling long-running tensions between the central and local governments over the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine base within Okinawa.
Earlier in the day, Kono met Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, the top commander of U.S. military forces in Okinawa, and asked him to take preventive measures following recent crimes and accidents involving the U.S. military bases there.
"I think it's important to cooperate together for stable stationing of the U.S. military forces in Japan and we need to work together to get the understanding of the local community, what it means to host U.S. military forces," Kono said to Nicholson.
"We want to make every possible effort to maintain the deterrence capability of the Japan-U.S. alliance," Kono added.
Nicholson replied, "We understand our obligation to the community and we can do that better as well. We will continue to look at our behavior, our actions and how we represent our country."
Referring to the recent actions of North Korea, Nicholson said, "(North) Korea has demonstrated their impact on this area and I want you to know that it has never been more important for the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and (South) Korea to work more closely."
Despite only accounting for 0.6 percent of the country's land mass, Okinawa is home to about 70 percent of the total area of land exclusively used by U.S. military facilities in Japan.
