Posted: 30 March 2006 1043 hrs

Japan and US to resume troop talks next week

TOKYO : Japan and the United States will resume talks next week on the relocation of US troops in Japan after missing a self-imposed deadline over a dispute on how much Tokyo should pay, officials announced.

The United States called off this week's talks on the plan, which would pull out 8,000 of the 40,000 US troops in Japan. The two allies had set a March 31 target to finalize the deal first reached in October.

"We are planning to hold three days of talks from April 4," Foreign Minister Taro Aso told the foreign affairs committee of the lower house.

"I don't have any indication that finalization of the deal will be delayed too much," Aso said.

But he said he still opposed a US request for Japan to pay 75 percent of the 10-billion-dollar cost of shifting troops to the US territory of Guam, which includes setting up new housing.

"I don't think the price offered by the United States has a firm basis for its calculation," Aso said.

He said that Japan, which has a ballooning public debt, could not shoulder more than 50 percent of the cost.

"I hope to see it below 50. I have no plan at all to give up 50," Aso said.

The Asahi Shimbun daily said the counter-offer was a compromise as Japan had said in negotiations it would pay only up to three billion dollars.

The realignment plan was designed in part to ease concerns by communities hosting US troops but local leaders have strongly opposed it, pushing for a greater pullout.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a news conference that the meeting with the United States "has to be held in tandem with talks with communities hosting US troops."

"We will keep talking with sincerity with host communities so that we get their understanding on the plan," Abe said.

The plan would remove troops from Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the US forces in Japan and has seen frequent anti-military protests.

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