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TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged on Monday to pursue more equal relations with the United States as Tokyo seeks to defuse a row with its close ally over where to move an American military base.
"I want to create ties in which we can enhance our relations of trust by telling each other what each of us should say clearly," he said in a televised new year address.
"It's important to show that Japan and the United States are in a relationship in which we need each other."
Japan should avoid a situation where "we just give up what we want to say only because it's difficult, or where one simply obeys the other", he said.
Soon after coming to power in September, Hatoyama's government provoked irritation in Washington by announcing a review of a 2006 agreement to move a US air base from an urban area to a coastal region on the island of Okinawa.
Tokyo is currently considering alternative sites for the US Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station, but Washington has repeatedly called for Tokyo to stick to the 2006 deal, which is opposed by local residents.
The agreement was part of a broader realignment of US forces in Japan that includes the redeployment of around 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to the US Pacific territory of Guam.
Hatoyama said he aimed to find a solution to the relocation issue within the coming months. "I don't mean to waste any time at all," he said.
Hatoyama's government has previously said it aims to make a decision on Futenma by May.
The United States, which defeated Japan in World War II and then occupied the country, now has 47,000 troops stationed there, more than half of them on Okinawa, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
Hatoyama last month marked a troubled first 100 days in office with his public approval rating falling sharply and one of his former aides being indicted for allegedly misreporting millions of dollars of political donations.
- AFP/so
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