US military preparing for biggest Okinawa land return in over 40 years

‘The US military announced it is preparing to return thousands of hectares of land in Okinawa to Japan, marking the largest such transfer since 1972. It follows numerous demonstrations against the military’s presence on the Japanese island.
The land return involves around 4,000 hectares of forest area, roughly half of the land in the Northern Training Area in the villages of Kunigami and Higashi, Kyodo News reported.
The move, which is based on an agreement reached between Washington and Tokyo in 1996, will see Okinawa’s role in hosting US military facilities in Japan drop from 74 percent to about 70 percent, in terms of land area.’
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