U.S.-Japan Relations Firmly Back on Track: Campbell

Relations between the United States and Japan "are firmly back on track" after a ministerial security meeting earlier this week, a senior U.S. diplomat said Friday.
Agreements reached at the meeting were "significant," Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said at a press conference.
The agreements cited by Campbell include a runway plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Okinawa Prefecture, southern Japan.
These achievements are "a reflection that the United States was the first on the scene in terms of international friends to support Japan in its time of need in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake and nuclear crisis," Campbell said.
Those agreements were reached at a meeting in Washington Tuesday of Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa from Japan, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates from the United States.
Campbell said, "I just want to underscore that the message delivered very clearly from Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton to their interlocutors is that we need to see progress."
"We need to see a sustained commitment on the part of the Japanese government to fulfill its obligations," Campbell said, pressing Tokyo to relocate the Futenma base as agreed.
The plan to relocate the Futenma base to another part of Okinawa has made little headway due to strong resistance by local residents.