U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will visit Japan this week amid widespread protest over Pentagon's plan to deploy the controversial Osprey military aircraft in the U.S. Marine Futenma Air Station in Japan's Okinawa island.
The U.S. Defense Department said on Monday that Carter, who is on a ten-day trip to Asia, would arrive in Japan on Friday after visiting India and South Korea. His trip is aimed at discussing the U.S. military's cooperation with its allies in the Asia-Pacific region.
In Japan, Carter is expected to discuss the planned realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, and the two countries' response to China's naval buildup. He is also likely to explain safety of the tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft and its strategic importance in the Asia-Pacific, Japanese media reported.
Okinawans were concerned over the safety of the Bell Boeing-built aircraft following a series of recent accidents. An Osprey crashed during a military drill in Morocco in April that killed two airmen followed by another accident in the U.S. state of Florida last month. The latest one was an emergency landing in North Carolina after the pilot reported mechanical trouble.
Governor Hirokazu Nakaima and mayors of municipalities in the Okinawa prefecture submitted a petition to Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto last urging the government to press the United States to reconsider its decision to deploy the "trouble-prone" aircraft to the Futenma Air Station in the island.
The petition says that Okinawa remains opposed to the plan unless the causes of recent Osprey crashes are clarified and public concerns are addressed. Japanese media quoted Nakaima as saying that it defied common sense to bring an aircraft with a record of crashing to the air station, which is situated in a densely populated area. He asked Japanese authorities to press the U.S. government to rethink or cancel the deployment.
But the U.S. Defense Department says it will go ahead with the planned deployment in Japan despite local concerns about the aircraft's safety record.
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told reporters last week that Osprey had no safety problems and the aircraft involved in the latest incident would be returned to its base for investigation.
He said the plan was to deliver Ospreys to a U.S. base in Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan later this month before their ultimate deployment in Okinawa in October.
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