TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed "strong indignation" to President Obama during a face-to-face meeting Wednesday about the death of a young Japanese woman allegedly murdered by a U.S. military worker.
"As Japanese prime minister, I protested sternly to President Obama over the recent incident in Okinawa," Abe said at a joint news conference after their meeting. "I feel strong indignation about the selfish and extremely mean crime," Abe said, according to the Kyodo News Service.
Obama, who arrived in Ise-Shima, Japan, for the meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, called the Okinawa crime “inexcusable” and said the United States is "committed to doing everything that we can to prevent any crimes from taking place of this sort.”
The crime has tapped into long-simmering resentment toward U.S. troops and bases on the island of Okinawa, an important hub of the U.S. “rebalance” to Asia, and threatens to derail the relocation of a key U.S. airbase there.
It could also imperil Abe’s plans to tighten the U.S.-Japan defense alliance as a counter to China’s growing military strength and assertiveness.
Abe and Obama initially planned to hold a one-on-one meeting early Thursday to discuss the G-7 agenda, along with U.S.-Japan bilateral issues. But that meeting was rescheduled for Wednesday night, shortly after Obama arrived from a three-day trip to Vietnam.
A former U.S. Marine, Kenneth Gadson, 32, was arrested May 19 in connection with the death of a woman who went missing in late April after telling a friend she was going for a walk.
Local media reported that Gadson, a civilian contractor at Kadena Air Base, on Okinawa, was arrested after showing police where the woman’s body had been dumped in a wooded area. His attorney said Gadson confessed to raping and murdering the woman, who was an office worker, and dumping her body. Police said the victim had been chosen at random.
The incident came just two months after a Navy sailor was arrested for raping a Japanese tourist who had fallen asleep in the hallway of a hotel in Naha, Okinawa’s capital.
About 800 people attended the female office worker's funeral Saturday, including senior government officials. Earlier, U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy was summoned to Japan’s Foreign Ministry to receive an official protest, and the senior U.S. military officer on Okinawa, Marine Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, traveled to the Okinawa governor’s office to formally apologize.
On Sunday, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered at the gates of a major U.S. base on Okinawa, chanting slogans and calling for the closure of all U.S. bases there.
Okinawa residents have long complained of noise, crime and congestion associated with the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed on the island. Although Okinawa accounts for only 0.6% of the land area of Japan, it hosts 75% of the U.S. military bases.
The controversy over the woman's death has partly overshadowed what was promised to be an important and politically sensitive three-day visit to Japan.
At the G-7 meetings, which begin Thursday, leaders from Britain, Canada, Italy, France and Germany, along with Abe and Obama, plan to discuss trade and economic issues; North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and human rights. Other issues include China’s territorial claims and island-building program in the South China Sea.
After the meeting ends Friday, Obama will travel to Hiroshima, site of the world"s first atomic bombing. He will lay a wreath at a park dedicated to the 140,000 victims of the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing.
Abe said Wednesday that he doesn’t have plans to reciprocate Obama's visit by going to Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military base that Japan bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, triggering the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan's prime minister noted that he visited the United States last year to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, the Associated Press reported.
Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit the city. He has pledged not to apologize for the U.S. decision to drop the bomb, but some survivors say they will consider his mere presence in Hiroshima as an expression of apology.
Many American war veterans, including survivors of Japan’s brutal prisoner of war camps, have urged Obama not to apologize in word or actions, arguing that the decision to use the atomic bomb saved thousands, if not millions, of lives by bringing World War II to a swift end.
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