Senior US officials told Congress that while they respected the decisions of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's six-month-old government, they hoped to go ahead with a plan to move the Futenma air base within Okinawa.

Michael Schiffer, a senior Pentagon official, told a congressional panel that troops in Okinawa were the only ground forces ‘between Hawaii and India’ which the US could quickly deploy.

"Futenma may be but one base and one part of a larger alliance relationship, but peace and stability in the region depend in no small part on the enduring presence of forward deployed US forces in Japan," said Schiffer, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia.

"The US cannot meet its treaty obligations to defend Japan, cannot respond to humanitarian crises or natural disasters, cannot meet its commitments for regional peace and stability without forward deployed ground forces in Japan," he said.

AFP