A Pentagon official has told a visiting official from Okinawa that the United States is mulling the deployment of tilt-rotor CV-22 Ospreys to the Asia-Pacific region, including the dispatch of 10 of the aircraft to Okinawa.

Susumu Matayoshi, head of the Okinawa governor's executive office, told reporters that Christopher Johnstone, the Pentagon's director for Northeast Asia, touched on the plan during a meeting Friday in Washington. Marc Knapper, director of the State Department's Office of Japanese Affairs, also attended the get-together.

It is the first time a U.S. government official has admitted that CV-22s — the U.S. Air Force's variant of the MV-22 Ospreys used by the Marine Corps — could be deployed to the region. Washington has also notified Tokyo of its plan to possibly begin stationing around 10 CV-22s at the U.S. Kadena Air Base in Okinawa in about two years' time, according to the sources.