| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
TOKYO : The latest hit-and-run accident involving US troops in Japan has sparked anger on an island that has become a flashpoint in a row over the American troop presence in the country.
In the second such crash on the southern island of Okinawa in five months, a US military Humvee slammed into a passenger car near a US base late on Tuesday, leaving two children with minor injuries, before the driver allegedly sped off.
The US Navy identified a 25-year-old servicewoman in connection with the accident but was yet to turn her over to Japanese police, Jiji Press reported.
"The accident is very regrettable," said Japan's top government spokesman Hirofumi Hirano about the crash near Nago city.
Nago mayor Susumu Inamine said: "We will certainly protest if it emerges the US military was involved," according to Okinawa's Ryukyu Shimpo daily.
The accident happened in a coastal area near Nago that already hosts one US base and where the United States wants to relocate a Marine airbase despite strong local opposition led by mayor Inamine.
The row on whether the relocation will go ahead or be scrapped has strained ties between Washington and a six-month-old centre-left government in Tokyo that has pledged to take a less subservient stance toward the United States.
Okinawans were also angered by a fatal hit-and-run case in November, when a US army staff sergeant was arrested after allegedly leaving a man dead on the roadside and trying to hide the crash by repairing his damaged vehicle.
After weeks of negotiations, the US military in January handed the man over to Japanese prosecutors, who then indicted him in a Japanese court.
Okinawa, the site of some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, remained under US administration until 1972 and still reluctantly hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops based in Japan.
- AFP/ir
|
