A former senior Foreign Ministry official admitted Wednesday that Japan secretly shouldered $4 million in costs for Okinawa's reversion from U.S. control in 1972.
Bunroku Yoshino, 87, who negotiated with the U.S. government for Okinawa's return as director general of the ministry's American Bureau, is the first official source to acknowledge the secret pact on the Okinawa reversion agreement signed in 1971. The American Bureau later became the North American Affairs Bureau.
"Japan paid a total of $320 million to the United States in costs for Okinawa's reversion, which included the $4 million" needed to turn land that U.S. forces had used back into farmland, Yoshino said.