WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and Japan have struck a bargain over a plan to realign U.S. forces in Japan, with Japan agreeing to pay $6 billion of the $10 billion cost, the Japanese defense chief said Sunday night. Japanese Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters after his three-hour meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Japan wanted to have an appropriate sharing of costs in transfering 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to the Pacific island of Guam.
Nukaga said that both sides agreed that the Japan-U.S. alliance is important, not only for Japan but also for the region.
The United States had proposed in an earlier round of negotiations that Japan pay $7.5 billion, or 75 percent, of the cost to relocate Marines. Japan had said it would pay about one-third of that amount.
The United States and Japan are discussing the biggest restructuring and streamlining of the U.S. military based in Japan in decades.
An outline of the overall realignment plan was announced in October and was to be finalized by the end of March. However, it bogged down over details.
