Assembly on the island, where tens of thousands of US soldiers are stationed, seeks change after Marine arrested.<\/p>\n
Published On 9 Oct 20269 Oct 2026<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The assembly adopted the resolution on Friday. The vote came after a US Marine was accused<\/a> of robbing and killing a local woman.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Ryotaro Odo, who heads the assembly\u2019s special committee on US military bases, said the US military was \u201cnot functioning as an organisation\u201d, pointing to failures in training and discipline.<\/p>\n He called the killing \u201cextremely heinous and despicable\u201d and urged the military to cooperate with investigators and discipline those responsible.<\/p>\n Some of the assembly\u2019s members opposed the resolution because it failed to demand the dismissal of the US military chief in Okinawa, Japan\u2019s Kyodo News agency reported.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The case has sparked<\/a> a series of demonstrations in Tokyo and Okinawa.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cheinous\u201d crime.<\/p>\n Okinawa, which was under US control<\/a> from 1945 to 1972, still hosts many facilities used exclusively by US forces.<\/p>\n