Japan’s Okinawa calls for review of US forces pact after killing

The prefectural assembly of Okinawa has called for a review of an agreement overseeing the stationing of United States military forces on the Japanese island.

The assembly adopted the resolution on Friday. The vote came after a US Marine was accused of robbing and killing a local woman.

The call to adapt the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement to urge the US military to prevent such incidents will be sent to the US embassy. The assembly also passed a statement to the same effect addressed to the Japanese government.

Ryotaro Odo, who heads the assembly’s special committee on US military bases, said the US military was “not functioning as an organisation”, pointing to failures in training and discipline.

He called the killing “extremely heinous and despicable” and urged the military to cooperate with investigators and discipline those responsible.

Some of the assembly’s members opposed the resolution because it failed to demand the dismissal of the US military chief in Okinawa, Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported.

Lance-Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, has been accused of killing Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel in Naha on Saturday. He has denied the allegations.

The case has sparked a series of demonstrations in Tokyo and Okinawa.

The island hosts the majority of the 54,000 US soldiers stationed in Japan. Crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-run and drink-driving incidents by US personnel have long sparked protests.

The US military paused its operations for 48 hours from Wednesday and also imposed a 30-day curfew from midnight to 5am starting on Friday.

Tokyo has called in the US ambassador and the US forces commander in Okinawa to protest the incident, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has condemned the “heinous” crime.

Okinawa, which was under US control from 1945 to 1972, still hosts many facilities used exclusively by US forces.