The United States ambassador to Japan vowed “complete and unequivocal cooperation” on Wednesday over the alleged rape of a local woman by two servicemen on an island fed up with hosting the US military.
Ambassador John Roos moved swiftly to reassure people on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa that he shared their anger over an incident that has the potential to act as a lightning rod for growing anti-US feeling.
Roos said the US government and military would “provide full, complete and unequivocal cooperation to the Japanese authorities in their investigation”.
After a meeting with vice foreign minister Shuji Kira, who is standing in while Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba is in Europe, Roos said: “I do understand the anger that many people feel with respect to this reported incident.”
He said he wanted the Japanese people to know that he shared that anger.
Okinawa governor Hirokazu Nakaima, a vocal critic of the size of the vast US presence on the island, met Defence Minister Satoshi Morimoto and expressed his fury, describing the alleged crime as “insane”.
The arrest of the two men on Tuesday is a potential flashpoint in relations between the US military and their reluctant Okinawan hosts.