Japan and the United States agreed on a sweeping plan to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan by 2014, though no overall expense was released, Kyodo News reported from Washington on Monday.

The U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation, providing details and timelines for implementing a package of realignment steps, was announced after a meeting in Washington between Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso, Defense Agency Director General Fukushiro Nukaga and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The plan notes that Japan will bear all construction and other costs for facilities for the realignment unless otherwise specified, while the U.S. side will bear the operational costs. However, the plan does not include a figure for the total expense.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was in Ghana on a visit, expressed satisfaction with the new agreement, saying it will serve to reinforce the bilateral alliance.

According to the roadmap, 8,000 of some 18,000 U.S. Marines in Okinawa and their 9,000 family members will be moved to Guam by 2014, with Japan shouldering 6.09 billion U.S. dollars, or 59 percent, of the estimated 10.27 billion dollars.

An airfield with two 1,800-meter runways will be built in Nago also by 2014 in order to realize the stalled relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station's heliport functions from downtown Ginowan, both in Okinawa, though no exact date was given for closing down Futenma.

Besides, U.S. carrier-borne aircraft will be relocated from Atsugi Air Base in Kanagawa prefecture just outside Tokyo to Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi prefecture by 2014 to disperse the burden of flight drills. Iwakuni will also be the host for KC-130 air tankers from Futenma.

The U.S. Army Japan's headquarters in Camp Zama in Kanagawa prefecture will also be upgraded to a joint task force-capable command by September 2009 and its Ground Self-Defense Force counterpart command will be moved to the same camp by March 2013.

The plan also included specifications as to the shared use of U. S. bases by the Self-Defense Force (SDF) for training as early as beginning this year and the sharing of data after the U.S. military sets up an X-band radar system for ballistic missile early warning at an SDF air base in Aomori Prefecture.

American troops have been stationed in Japan since the end of World War II in 1945. Currently, there are about 50,000 U.S troops located in Japan. Local residents have long complained of crime, noise and crowding associated with the U.S. military presence.

Tokyo and Washington preliminarily approved an overall realignment package on the U.S. military presence in Japan in October 2005. However, disagreements on cost sharing and others have kept them from nailing down the whole implementation plan before a March 31 deadline, as decided in October 2005.

Details of some issues mentioned in the October accord, such as the return of some 1,500 hectares of land from U.S. bases in Okinawa, are yet to be finalized, according to Kyodo.

Source: Xinhua