The United States has begun withdrawing thousands of its marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa, Tokyo and Washington said Saturday, after decades of mounting local residents’ complaints about the US military presence. TASR informs about it according to a report of the AFP news agency.
The United States announced in 2012 that it would move 9,000 Marines from the island. Communities there complain that the military bases are an “unfair burden” – objections range from environmental pollution to noise and helicopter crashes.
The move began with the departure of “a small detachment of approximately 100 Marine logistics support personnel” to the US island territory of Guam, Japan’s Defense Ministry and the US Marine Corps said.
“The start of the move to Guam marks the first phase of the departure of Marines to locations outside of Japan,” said a joint statement from Tokyo and Washington.
Okinawa is a strategically important place east of Taiwan
There are currently about 19,000 US Marines in Okinawa, which is located in a strategic location east of Taiwan, which has become a focus of tension between the United States and China.
Beijing claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring the self-governing island under its control.
Washington is Taiwan’s most important supporter and its biggest arms supplier, but has long maintained “strategic ambiguity” over whether to back it up with ground forces, AFP reports.
The 9,000 displaced Marines are expected to move elsewhere in the Pacific — to Guam, Hawaii or Australia, the United States said.
Okinawa makes up only 0.6 percent of Japan’s territory, but it is home to more than half of the 50,000 US troops deployed in the country.
