Japan will urge the United States to ensure that U.S. military personnel and their family members in Japan comply with a domestic law requiring car owners to file a certificate verifying an exclusive parking space at the time of vehicle registration, government officials said Tuesday.
Under the law, vehicle owners must obtain a certificate from police proving they have a parking space for their vehicle and submit it to local offices of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry when they register it.
There are about 58,000 private vehicles that belong to U.S. military personnel and their dependents at U.S. bases nationwide, but only some 2,300 at Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture have the required parking certificates.
In 1998, the then Transport Ministry issued a written notice to U.S. military authorities in Japan asking them to comply with the law by June that year. But the notice has been virtually ignored, according to officials.