US rebuffs Japan's request over military pact

The US insists on maintaining its 2006 military agreement with the previous Japanese administration despite Tokyo's request for a review of the deal on the presence of US forces.

"There are really, as far as we're concerned, no alternatives to the arrangement that was negotiated," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on his plane bound for Tokyo.

Under the accord, the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base would be closed and a new US base built in a coastal area of Okinawa by 2014, with about 8,000 Marines transferred off the island to Guam.

"We've looked over the years at all of these alternatives and they are either politically untenable or operationally unworkable," Gates said ahead of his two-day visit on Tuesday.

Japan's new center-left government that came to power last month has struck a more independent stance towards Washington.

Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said that the two countries should maintain flexibility on the 2006 agreement.

Japanese people and authorities have been infuriated with crimes committed by US service personnel on the southern island of Okinawa, host to a huge US military presence.

In mid February 2008, 38-year-old US Marine, Tyrone Hadnott, was arrested over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl on the island. The news, reminding another similar case in 1995, jolted the US-Japan alliance.

Okinawa hosts more than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan.

In another move to show independence from its old ally, Washington, Tokyo has also announced it would no longer carry out a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of the controversial war in Afghanistan.

Hatoyama's party, which has spoken out against abetting "American wars," had long opposed the mission and the premier has suggested Tokyo will find other non-military means to contribute to the eight-year-old conflict.