Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda met with the U.S. President Barack Obama for the first time Wednesday in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. While the two leaders agreed to deepen the alliance between Japan and the United States, Mr. Obama urged Mr. Noda to make serious efforts to ensure progress in the plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the densely populated Ginowan city in Okinawa Island to the coastal Henoko area on the same island.
Mr. Obama told Mr. Noda that a period in which results must be seen in the relocation plan is approaching. He was reiterating in stronger terms what the U.S. had said during a bilateral meeting in June of foreign and defense ministers of both countries. At that time, the U.S. had told Japan that it is important to make concrete progress on the Futenma issue within a year.
Mr. Obama apparently is feeling impatient and irritated over the relocation issue, because some U.S. congressional leaders, including Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, have criticized the U.S. rebasing plan, which would involve a new Marine Corps air station in Okinawa and transfer of some 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam. They think that the plan is too costly and unrealistic.