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Japan, U.S. to advance talks on narrowing scope of workers protected by SOFA

Xinhua, December 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and the visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter agreed here on Wednesday to further talk on narrowing the scope of U.S. military base workers protected by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

Under the 1960 pact, a bilateral pact that gives U.S. servicemen and civilian workers in Japan privileged legal status, the U.S. justice system, instead of Japanese courts, has the primary right of jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S base service members and their "civil component" if the accused was "acting on official duty."

The Japanese and U.S. governments decided in July to "clarify" and narrow down the scope of the "civilian component," after a former U.S. Marine and base worker raped and murdered a 20-year-old local woman in April and evoked widespread criticism and anti-U.S. sentiment in the island prefecture of Okinawa.

The Okinawa people, however, demanded the SOFA to be drastically reviewed, instead of just being adjusted in a very limited way as the government now plans to do, and the U.S. bases be relocated outside the prefecture.

Okinawa hosts some 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan while accounting for only 0.6 percent of the country's total land mass. Criminal cases involving U.S. military men repeatedly happened in Okinawa.

During their talks, Inada and Carter also reaffirmed plans for the return of some 10,000 acres of training land in Okinawa by the U.S. to Japanese control, which was announced a day earlier by Carter and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The return would mark the largest release of land from U.S. control to Japan since the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S. control, said Carter.

Carter has been in Tokyo for a two-day visit before heading for India. The visit was considered by some analysts as aiming to reassure Japan of the U.S.-Japan alliance amid uncertainties over bilateral ties under the new U.S. administration to be led by President-elect Donald Trump.

"The United States has important interests in this region, and therefore, because many of those interests are shared with Japan, we have a common interest in strengthening the capabilities of the alliance," Carter told a press conference after his meeting with Inada.

He also said that he could not speak for the new Trump administration, but he would be committed to a smooth handover of responsibilities in the Department of Defense. Endit