Text Fwd: [famoksaiyanfriends] Obama Visit to Skip New Joint Security Declaration 새로운 공동 안보 선언을 건너뛰기위한 오바마 방문

* Text sent from Martha Duenas on Oct. 19, 2010

Daily Yomiuri Online
Obama Visit to Skip New Joint Security Declaration
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Oct. 18, 2010

With no prospect of resolving the logjam over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan and the United States are scrapping plans for a new joint declaration on deepening the bilateral alliance during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit next month, it has been learned.

The envisioned new declaration would have marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the revised Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, while putting a new face on the bilateral alliance in the form of renewing the 1996 Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security.

As with the 1996 declaration, the one envisaged for Obama's upcoming Japan visit was supposed to be comprehensive, covering a broad range of regional and global security cooperation between the two countries, according to sources familiar with bilateral relations.

While confirming the agreement to scrap the planned declaration, the Japanese and U.S. governments are considering adopting a joint statement of lesser significance on specified security fields during Obama's visit, the sources said.

The two governments, on the occasion of a summit meeting in November last year between then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Obama, agreed to hold consultations on ways to deepen the bilateral alliance before the U.S. president's visit to Japan one year later.

Both nations had envisioned recasting the 1996 joint security declaration into one to beef up deterrence by both countries, including enhancing the U.S. nuclear umbrella, as well as defense-related information security, missile defense, space development and disaster prevention, the sources said.

However, the planned consultations made little progress due to the Hatoyama administration's handling of the relocation of the Futenma air base's functions within Okinawa Prefecture.

Even after the June launch of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government, there has been no in-depth Japan-U.S. security dialogue due to such factors as the House of Councillors election in July and last month's leadership election of Kan's Democratic Party of Japan.

The result is that a government decision on where to relocate Futenma has been put off beyond the date of Obama's visit to Tokyo, while bilateral negotiations also have faced difficulty over revising an agreement on the so-called sympathy budget--Japan's share of the cost of maintaining U.S. military forces in this country.

In addition, Tokyo and Washington are not sufficiently sharing views about the security situation in East Asia amid China's steady increase in military might, the sources noted.