Japan says FM's US trip cancelled Kyoko Hasegawa Agence France-Presse
November 04, 2009
TOKYO – Plans for a Washington meeting this week between Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been scrapped, Japan's government said Wednesday.
The talks would have come days before US President Barack Obama visits Tokyo next week, with ties between the two countries strained by a row over a US military base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa.
"The visit this time was cancelled as the Japanese side could not coordinate the timing amid various scheduling demands such as parliamentary sessions," Hirofumi Hirano, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.
"I don't think it will affect relations between Japan and the United States," the top government spokesman said.
The US State Department said Saturday Okada would meet Clinton on Friday but then quickly dropped mention of the meeting from Clinton's schedule.
Japanese ministers require parliamentary approval for overseas travel while the Diet sits and are expected to stay at home when the legislature is in session, although ministers can travel when there are pressing reasons.
Okada, along with other cabinet ministers, is expected to attend an upper house budgetary committee hearing likely to be held Friday.
Meanwhile, the top US diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, will visit Tokyo for talks on Thursday, the State Department has said.
"We have a new government in place in Tokyo," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Tuesday. "We've started an intense dialogue with them. Our position on the agreements that we have for basing hasn't changed."
Japan's new centre-left government has said it will review a 2006 bilateral agreement on the 47,000 US troops based in Japan -- including the scheduled move of an airbase on Okinawa from an urban area to a coastal region by 2014.
Many Okinawans oppose the American presence and want the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base closed and moved off the island, rather than having it relocated to the coastal Camp Schwab site as previously agreed.
US government and military officials have stressed that Washington is in no mood to reopen talks on a deal that was years in the making.
Okada had been expected to discuss the issue in Washington ahead of Obama's November 12-13 Tokyo visit for meetings with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose government took power in mid-September.
Hatoyama has also said his government will end a naval refueling mission supporting the US-led operations in Afghanistan in January.
During Obama's visit, Hatoyama plans to announce that Japan will give up to five billion dollars to help build roads and boost agriculture and job training in Afghanistan, the Nikkei business daily has reported.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Wednesday Japan may send military officials to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to gather information on what else Japan could do to help the country.
