The U.S. government has sounded out Tokyo about a possibility of transferring about 1,500 Marines in Okinawa to a Marine base in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan, sources in the Japanese government said Monday. Washington made the overture in a review of the two countries' packaged deal in 2006 to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Ginowan in the southern Japan prefecture of Okinawa to the Henoko coastal district of Nago, also Okinawa, and transfer 8,000 Marines in Okinawa to Guam.
The Japanese and U.S. governments started reviewing the deal in December last year and have reached a basic agreement to transfer 4,700 of the 8,000 Marines to Guam ahead of any relocation of the Futenma base and the 3,300 others to locations in the Asia-Pacific regions.
The U.S. side is mulling relocating some 1,500 of the 3,300 Marines to the Iwakuni base, according to the sources.
If the relocation is carried out, the city of Iwakuni would face greater burden stemming from the U.S. military presence. It has already been decided that carrier-based fighters at the U.S. Atsugi base in Kanagawa Prefecture, eastern Japan, will be transferred to the Iwakuni base.
