U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will skip Japan on his Asian tour in late October due to a stalemate over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Okinawa, Japanese government sources said Thursday.
Tokyo and Washington had been trying to arrange a Japanese stop as part of Rumsfeld's trip to China, South Korea and other parts of Asia, the sources said.
Meanwhile, a Defense Agency source said later the same day that an interim report the two nations are expected to jointly compile by month's end may exclude the Futenma relocation issue if the two sides fail to reach an agreement issue by then.