Dec 21 05:23 PM US/EasternWASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Monday with Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki apparently intending to relay Washington's hope to implement as agreed upon with Tokyo a bilateral deal on where to relocate a key U.S. military airfield in Okinawa.
"The topic for discussion was the secretary's views on overall Japan- U.S. relations," Fujisaki told reporters after the unscheduled talks, noting there was no change in the U.S. position on the base relocation issue.
He said Clinton talked "from a standpoint that she attaches an importance to Japan-U.S. ties." He also said it is rare for the top U.S. diplomat to meet with an ambassador and that he "seriously takes it to heart."
Fujisaki declined to make further comments, saying he would report on the meeting to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
The talks came after Hatoyama said Clinton expressed understanding, in a conversation in Copenhagen last week, of Japan's recent decision to put off until next year reaching a conclusion on the relocation of the U.S. Marines' Futemma Air Station in Okinawa.
"I told her about the current circumstances and I believe that she basically understood them," Hatoyama told reporters last Friday. "I think it was a great opportunity for us to be able to reconfirm the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance."
The meeting between Clinton and Fujisaki may have reflected the top U.S. diplomat's frustration at Hatoyama's remarks. Clinton's request for Fujisaki to visit her at the State Department was filed Monday morning, though federal government offices in the capital were closed for the day due to a large snow storm over the weekend.
Hatoyama has postponed making a decision on the base relocation issue despite Washington's repeated pressure on Tokyo to stick to the original deal it forged with the United States in 2006.
Under the 2006 deal, which the two countries agreed as part of a broader realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, the Futemma facility, located in a residential area of Ginowan, will be transferred to Nago, another Okinawa city that is less densely populated.
Hatoyama was initially hoping to convey the government's decision on the Futemma facility directly to President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But the Japanese premier told reporters in the Danish capital that he only spoke with Obama briefly during an official climate meeting of state leaders.
Other participants in Monday's meeting included Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, and Kevin Maher, director of the department's Office of Japanese Affairs, and Takeo Akiba, minister in charge of political affairs at the Japanese Embassy in Washington.
Posts
