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Japan, US announce

plan to close

Okinawa base

TOKYO: Japan and the United States, determined to make President Bill Clinton's visit here next week a success, announced on Friday the closure of a U.S. military base which was a symbol of anger at U.S. forces in Japan.

Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and U.S. ambassador Walter Mondale told a news conference that the Futenma Air Base, a key strategic facility for the U.S. Marine Corps on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, would be shut within five to seven years and the land returned to its owners.

Mondale said "many other significant steps" would also be announced in the next few days to make the U.S. military presence in Japan, particularly on Okinawa, "less intrusive."

Mondale said Clinton, who visits Japan from April 16 to 18, and U.S. Defence Secretary William Perry, who arrives in Tokyo on Sunday, would announce details of the other measures.

Futenma, home to nearly 4,000 U.S. servicemen and more than 100 planes, is located on 1,200 acres in a residential district in almost the centre of the Okinawan capital Naha.

"With this plan and our utmost efforts, we will be able to at least reduce some burden the Okinawans have shouldered for a long time," Hashimoto said.

"We want to be good neighbours," Mondale said. "In many ways Futenma became the centrepiece of this whole issue because it is a large base, there's a lot of activity and its located right in the centre of a major city."

The rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa schoolgirl last September, for which three U.S. servicemen have been jailed, sparked fierce protests against the U.S. military presence on the island, home to about 75 percent of U.S. military bases and nearly half the 47,000 U.S. service personnel in Japan.

The three servicemen were not stationed at the Futenma base.

Okinawa was the only part of Japan overrun by U.S. troops at the end of World War II and was returned to Japan in 1972. The U.S. has 40 military facilities on the island, including various-sized equipment installations.

Only hours before the announcement, about 10,000 anti-base protestors demonstrated in Naha, the latest sign of discontent about U.S. bases on an island making up less than one per cent of Japan's land area and 1,000 km (625 miles) south of Tokyo.

Futenma's operations, which mainly involve helicopters, an airborne refuelling squadron of 14 planes, and 88 Harrier jump jets, would be relocated to another base on Okinawa and a base on mainland Japan, and the Harrier jets, among the world's noisest planes, would return to a location in the United States.

Hashimoto and Mondale stressed the realignments would not involve a significant reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Japan and would not compromise East Asian security.

"We will have significantly reduced the irritance and the intrusiveness of our presence in Okinawa while at the same time fully maintaining our capabilities and the readiness required to meet our security obligations," Mondale said.

The commander of U.S. Forces in Japan General Richard Myers backed up Mondale's assessment. "Let me make it absolutely clear that this has not diminished the combat capability or readiness of U.S. forces in Japan at all," he said.

"We need the Japan-U.S security treaty." Hashimoto said.

Mondale, describing the changes as the biggest ever undertaken in Okinawa, indicated other measures would include changes in military drills to cut down on noise and traffic dislocation.

Since the 1992 closure of U.S. bases in the Philippines, Japan has provided the only strategic location in the region where U.S. forces can enjoy a relatively undisturbed stay and a location that provides good technical backup and logistics.

The Pentagon regards Japan as the ideal site for so-called "forward deployment" -- a location which covers the Korean peninsula, China, the Russian Far East and the rest of Asia.

Since the Gulf War, Japan has also been a major logistics base for U.S. aircraft carriers operating in the Indian Ocean.

For the rest of Asia, the U.S. military in Japan has been seen as a source of stability, proved in the eyes of many Asians by the recent crisis over Chinese exercises near Taiwan.-Reuter