Japan, U.S. remain apart on sharing of realignment cost

Japan and the United States remained apart on the first day of their senior working-level talks Tuesday over the sharing of cost of relocating U.S. Marines Corps troops from Okinawa to Guam, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday.

The issue of cost-sharing for moving 8,000 U.S. Marines haunts the three-day talks that began on Tuesday. The two sides stuck to their conflicting stances on the first day, Kyodo said, quoting insiders.

In former rounds of talks, the United States had officially set the total estimated costs for the moving at about 10 billion U.S. dollars, and asked Japan to share a burden of 75 percent, while Japan has only offered to cover 3 billion dollars, including 2.5 billion dollars for housing construction, through loans to be paid back by the United States.

Analysts said the current situation shadows the prospect for a final agreement, which has already past the deadline originally scheduled for the end of March.

A senior Japanese government official said a top-level political decision may be needed in the end, Kyodo said.

Japan and the United States reached an agreement last October on transferring 8,000 U.S. Marine troops out of Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of the U.S. troops stationed in Japan.

Source: Xinhua