Japan to reassure U.S. on alliance at summit

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will reassure the United States that their alliance is in good shape, Tokyo said on Thursday, as a feud over a Marine base strains relations ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama.

Japan's new government has pledged to steer a diplomatic course more independent of its key ally, raising worries about the alliance which is central to security arrangements in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea.

But Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said he wanted to allay such concerns in talks on Friday with Obama, who will make his first visit to Japan as president.

"There are many people (in the United States) who have been supportive of our new government, while there are those who have been worried about the change," Hatoyama told reporters.

"One big purpose of the Japan-U.S. summit is to tell those who are concerned that there is nothing to be worried about, that things are all right."

Obama and Hatoyama are expected to turn down the heat in a dispute over the U.S. Marines Futenma air base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, a key part of a realignment of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

U.S. officials have made crystal clear they want Tokyo to implement a 2006 deal under which Futenma, now located in a crowded part of Okinawa, would be closed and replaced with a facility in a remoter part of the island.

But Hatoyama said before the August election that swept his Democratic Party to power that the base should be moved off the island, reluctant host to more than half the U.S. forces in Japan.