The Associated Press
Published: December 10, 2007
TOKYO: Washington's estimate of the housing costs it wants Tokyo to shoulder for U.S. Marines after they are moved from southern Japan to Guam is too high, Japan's defense minister said Monday.
Japan has agreed to help move thousands of Marines from its southern island of Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam and provide new housing for them under an agreement last year to streamline American troops in Japan.
But Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Washington's proposal of 70 million yen (US$627,800; €428,600) per house is too high.
"Do we have to provide such extravagant houses by using our tax money? Obviously, it's too high," Ishiba told the upper house's audit committee. "We have to examine it closely."
Ishiba did not say what would be considered an appropriate level, but added that a similar house could be built for just over half that price in Okinawa.
Under last year's agreement, Japan is to shoulder about 60 percent of the estimated US$10 billion (€6.8 billion) needed to build houses and relocate 8,000 Marines to Guam, about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) south of Tokyo in the Pacific. The Marines are part of the 50,000 troops currently stationed in Japan under a bilateral security pact.
The realignment plan also includes the relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps air station in Okinawa to a less crowded location on the island. Carrier-borne fighter jets from the U.S. Navy based near Tokyo also will be moved to southwestern Japan.
Many Okinawans complain about the noise and crime related to the heavy U.S. military presence there, but others say the troops benefit the economy in the prefecture, which has Japan's highest unemployment rate.
Okinawa is about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
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