Japan to offer cash, loans for US troop move: Paper

Tokyo, Apr 11: Japan will likely offer to pay nearly 70 per cent of the estimated billion cost of moving 8,000 US Marines off its southern island of Okinawa, a Japanese newspaper reported today, ahead of US-Japan talks aimed at wrapping up a sweeping plan to reorganise US troops in Japan.

Japanese officials, though, denied their offer had been firmed up and said clinching a final deal might take more time.

The Nihon Keizai financial daily said Tokyo was now likely to offer to pay more than 30 per cent of the total costs in direct payments and a similar percentage through loans, for a total of close to 70 per cent.

Washington has asked Japan to pick up 75 per cent of the tab.

The two sides missed a March 31 deadline to finalise the plan to realign the approximately 50,000 US troops in Japan as part of Washington's global effort to transform its military into a more flexible force.

''It would be good if the United States and Japan can reach agreement, but it may not be that easy,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a news conference. ''We will make every effort.'' Officials are set to try again on Thursday and Friday, after the mayor of a city on Okinawa agreed last week to a plan to close the US Marines' Futenma air base in a crowded part of the island and move it next to another base farther north.

A deal to close Futenma, a goal the two allies have been pursuing for a decade, is a prerequisite for moving about 8,000 Marines off Okinawa, mostly to the US territory of Guam.

Resentment of US troops runs deep in Okinawa, host to nearly half the American military personnel in Japan.

The two governments see reducing friction there as vital for the alliance.

Another obstacle to a deal is bickering over Japan's share of the bill for shifting the Marines out of Okinawa.

''There continues to be a considerable gap (between the two sides),'' Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters, adding that both sides would have to make concessions.

Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine put up another hurdle to a final deal on Sunday when he said he would not accept the government's proposal to relocate Futenma on the subtropical island, about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo.

Inamine, who has legal authority to block the plan, has said the base should either be moved to an offshore facility as once planned, or shifted outside of Okinawa entirely.

But he has agreed to keep discussing the matter with central government officials.

REUTERS