![A US F-22 Raptor at Kadena base on Japan's south-western island of Okinawa in 2007. [Reuters]](http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200802/r226856_900670.jpg "A US F-22 Raptor at Kadena base on Japan's south-western island of Okinawa in 2007. [Reuters]")
Last Updated:
The United States and Japan have formally acknowledged they will miss their 2014 deadline for the relocation of a US base in Okinawa but say it will happen at a later date.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have met their Japanese counterparts and also reconfirmed plans to move 8,000 marines and about 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to the US Pacific territory of Guam.
Under a 2006 joint plan, the United States had planned to shut the Futenma base in Okinawa which is located in a crowded urban area.
The Japanese and US leaders have endorsed building a replacement base with V-shaped runways on an isolated stretch of beach elsewhere on Okinawa.
But local activists have wanted the base removed entirely from the island, home to half the 47,000 US troops based in Japan.
0 comments