TOKYO, April 26 (UPI) -- The announcement of a joint review of plans about U.S. troop relocation in Japan has been postponed, U.S. and Japanese officials said.
U.S. officials asked Japan to delay the announcement after three members of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee distributed a letter they sent to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in which they objected to the document's contents, Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday.
Both countries had been working to release the document, considered an interim report on the realignment plans, before Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visits Washington Sunday, the Tokyo newspaper said.
"I think we will be able to announce the document before the prime minister visits the United States," Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka said Wednesday in Tokyo. "We are proceeding with a plan to keep the contents of the document unchanged."
In the letter, committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Jim Webb, D-Va., said they were concerned because "serious questions that have not been fully addressed regarding the emerging agreement. ... [These] questions pertain to the core details of this or any basing arrangement, including cost estimates, military sustainment and force arrangement."
