数千美国海军将撤离冲绳岛军事基地

The United States and Japan have reached a deal to move thousands of US Marines from the island of Okinawa.

美国与日本达成协议，将撤离数千驻扎在冲绳岛上的海军陆战队。

Japan-US ties have been strained over the future of the Okinawa base and troops
Some 9,000 marines will be sent to ''locations outside of Japan'', a joint statement by Washington and Tokyo said. Some 10,000 troops will remain.

The revised agreement comes ahead of a visit to Washington by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

The two sides have still not reached agreement on closing the controversial Futenma airbase on Okinawa.

The troops leaving Okinawa will be moved to Guam, Hawaii and other locations in the Asia Pacific region.

Japan has been unable to fulfil the conditions of an agreement over Okinawa signed in 2006 under which it had to find an alternative location for the Futenma air base before US troops were redeployed.

Proposed alternatives met heavy local opposition.

At the beginning of talks this year, both countries said they had agreed to de-link the two issues.

In the latest statement, they said they still agreed that Futenma should be relocated to Camp Schwab, in a sparsely populated area miles north of Naha, in line with the 2006 deal.

This "remains the only viable solution that has been identified to date", the two governments said.

The announcement is intended to take the sting out of the dispute before Mr Noda visits Washington next week, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo.