© Kyodo/ReutersProtesters raise placards reading "Anger was over the limit" during a rally against the U.S. military presence on the island in Okinawa, Japan.
. It follows numerous demonstrations against the military's presence on the Japanese island. The land return involves around
4,000 hectares of forest area, roughly half of the land in the Northern Training Area in the villages of Kunigami and Higashi,
Kyodo News reported.
The move, which is based on an
agreement reached between Washington and Tokyo in 1996, will see Okinawa's role in hosting
US military facilities in Japan drop from 74 percent to about 70 percent, in terms of land area. The return will be the biggest transaction of its kind since 1972, when the formal post-war occupation of Japan by US forces ended.
A Thursday ceremony has been organized by Okinawa's central government to mark the land return. However, the
burden will still remain comparatively large for tiny Okinawa, which comprises less than 1 percent of Japan's total land area.
Lieutenant General Lawrence Nicholson, the top commander of the US military in Okinawa, said in a statement that the decreased training area "will not deteriorate our commitment to our ability towards working with the government of Japan and our partners in the Japan Self-Defense Forces in mutual defense of this country." He went on to state that
there are plans to return more land in the coming years, because "we are respectful of the
feelings of Okinawans that our footprint must be reduced."
Comment: Talk about wearing out a US-forced welcome and self-unlimited, extended stay...all the more likely to continue, given US-Obama policy is to encircle China and cut off Japanese relations with its neighbor.