US completes largest Okinawa land transfer since 1972

TOKYO

The United States has returned around half of a large military training area in Okinawa to Japan in the largest transfer since 1972, when Japan regained control of the southern prefecture after its occupation following World War II.

Kyodo news agency reported that Japan’s government held a ceremony Thursday at a seaside resort in Nago in Okinawa to mark the transfer with the attendance of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy.

Governor Takeshi Onaga, who won the 2014 gubernatorial election with a pledge to oppose the relocation of a U.S. base in Okinawa, however did not attend the event.

On Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kennedy announced the return of around 4,000 hectares out of 7,800 in what is called the Northern Training Area.

Washington had been agreeable to returning a large part of the training area for nearly 20 years as part of a mutual agreement by Washington and Tokyo to lighten the American military “footprint” on the crowded island.

As part of the return agreement, the Japanese government undertook to build six helicopter landing pads in the area remaining under American control, but their construction has been hobbled by strong local opposition.

The people of Okinawa have long felt oppressed by hosting around two-thirds of the entire U.S. military establishment in Japan since the end of WWII.

After the transfer, Okinawa hosts 70.6 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan in terms of land area rather than the previous 74 percent.

In addition to tension over the construction of helipads, Okinawa and Tokyo have also been engaged in a long-running feud over the relocation of the Futenma Air Station since 2015, when Onaga revoked a landfill approval by his predecessor.

Both sides have filed a series of suits over the base’s planned relocation from densely populated Ginowan city to reclaimed land on the less populated shore of Henoko.