Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed Monday to implement the relocation of the Futenma military base within Okinawa Prefecture, based on a bilateral accord.
Genba told reporters that in the talks in New York, he asked Clinton to make further efforts to ease the burdens on the people of Okinawa, telling her that the prospects for the base relocation plan are tough.
Referring to calls for reviewing the current relocation plan, Clinton told Genba that she hopes to move the issue forward quickly by implementing the agreement formulated in the bilateral security talks earlier this summer, a U.S. official told reporters.