Washington, January 09: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet her Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada in Hawaii on Tuesday to convey Washington’s concerns regarding its partnership with Tokyo and the fate of a US military base in Japan.
The two sides “have to have a very clear-headed recognition of how important this relationship is, how many aspects need to be maintained and engaged upon,” said Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, who will accompany Clinton in the trip.
“And security issues are important in a complex and changing Asia, and we want a very clear set of statements on the part of the Japanese government of a desire to continue to work closely with us,” he added.
The new government of Japan headed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has threatened that Japan could refuse continued military cooperation with the US. He has hinted that Japan might request for the relocation of the American airbase base in Futenma. Futenma is located in the southern island of Okinawa and along with other bases there house thousands of US marines.
The new outlook undermines the Status of Forces Agreement signed in 2006 between Japan’s former governing Liberal Democratic Party and the administration of former US president George W. Bush.
Commenting on the US-Japan relations, Hatoyama said on Monday that Japan should avoid a situation in which “we just give up what we want to say only because it’s difficult, or where one simply obeys the other.”
——Agencies