WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- The United States plans to transfer the bulk of 4,000 out of 19,000 Marines stationed in Okinawa, southern Japan, to Guam in a period from 2024 to 2028, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command said Wednesday.
Adm. Harry Harris told a congressional hearing that "the movement of the bulk of the Marines to Guam would occur in the 2024 to 2028 time frame."
Japan and the United States agreed in 2013 to start moving Marines from Okinawa to Guam in the first half of the 2020s as part of efforts to reduce the burden on the island prefecture, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military bases in Japan.
But the transfer is effectively tied to the planned relocation of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa, a controversial project that is supposed to lead to the air base's closure and the return of its land to Japanese control, but that is fiercely opposed by locals who want the base to be moved outside the prefecture.
Speaking at the House Committee on Armed Services, Harris said the United States also plans to transfer about 3,000 Marines to Hawaii from Okinawa.
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