TOKYO, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The Japanese government will seek $1 billion to help relocate U.S. troops off of Okinawa, far more than the $206 million it spent this year, sources say.
The country's defense and finance ministries say the much higher figure may make it necessary to break the U.S. troop "realignment" costs out from Japan's normal fiscal 2009 defense budget, unnamed sources told The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.
The $1 billion includes about $434 million to $542 million for 740 acres of land on a U.S. Navy base in Guam, where Japan is to build barracks and a commander's office for U.S. Marine Corps units now stationed in Okinawa.
The government is also calling for hundreds of millions in spending to relocate the Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa, to waters off Camp Schwab elsewhere on the island, the newspaper said.
