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TOKYO : US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday pressed Japan to quickly "move on" with a plan to relocate a controversial US military base to a new area of southern Okinawa island.
The Okinawa issue has clouded ties between Japan's five-week-old centre left government and the administration of US President Barack Obama, who is due to visit Japan next month.
Gates, after meeting Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, urged Japan to stick to a 2006 agreement to allow for a new replacement airbase to be built on the island by 2014.
"Our view is this may not be the perfect alternative for anyone but it is the best alternative for everyone," Gates said in a joint press briefing with Kitazawa.
"This is the time to move on," he said, stressing "the importance of moving forward expeditiously on the roadmap as agreed".
Hatoyama has said he wants to review the wider Tokyo-Washington agreement that included the relocation of the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base from an urban area of Okinawa to a less-populated northern coastal area.
Many residents of Okinawa, fed up with aircraft noise and the large US troop presence, want the base moved off the island or even out of Japan -- a view Hatoyama and his coalition allies have supported in the past.
But Gates said the base move was the "lynchpin" of the wider agreement, under which both countries also agreed to move 8,000 Marines to Guam, a relocation to be part-financed by Japan.
"Without the Futenma realignment... there will be no relocation to Guam," Gates said. "And without relocation to Guam, there'll be no consolidation of forces and return of land in Okinawa."
Kitazawa also signalled Tokyo wants to resolve the issue.
"It is important for Japan to make efforts and I hope the US side will understand the Japanese efforts," he said.
"I believe it is not constructive to spend time on this issue. There are many very high hurdles to clear but overcoming this is very important to maintain good relations between Japan and the United States."
The United States has some 47,000 troops based in Japan, more than half of them on Okinawa island, where residents have also been angered by crimes committed by service members and raised environmental concerns.
Gates' two-day visit is the first by a member of Obama's cabinet since Japan's new government took power, signalling that, while it values the US alliance, it wants a less subservient relationship.
Hatoyama's government, which in opposition criticised Japan abetting "American wars", has also announced it would end in January an Indian Ocean naval refuelling mission in support of the Afghanistan war effort.
Hatoyama's government has said it is planning more civilian aid instead.
Greeting Gates, Hatoyama stressed that his government cherishes the US alliance and said "under the current circumstances of instability in Asia, it's all the more important to strengthen our alliance further".
Gates later left for Seoul, where he was due to hold talks on the nuclear-armed communist regime North Korea, before Thursday heading to Slovakia for a NATO meeting of defence ministers on Friday.
- AFP
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