Japan foreign minister to meet Clinton over U.S. bases: report

An aerial view shows coral reef along the front of the U.S. Marine base Camp Schwab, off the tiny hamlet of Henoko in Nago on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, October 13, 2009.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's foreign minister will meet his U.S. counterpart on Friday for talks expected to focus on a row over the reorganization of U.S. military bases in Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.

Kyodo, quoting the U.S. State Department, said the talks between Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would take place in Washington ahead of a trip to Tokyo by U.S. President Barack Obama on November 12-13.

A dispute over relocating a U.S. Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa is straining ties between Washington and Tokyo's new government, which has vowed to steer a more independent diplomatic course from its security ally.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said before his party won an August election that he wanted to move the Futenma air base off Okinawa.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly told Tokyo last month he wanted a 2006 pact that would replace Futenma with a facility in a less crowded part of Okinawa as well as shift 8,000 U.S. Marines to Guam to go ahead as planned.

The deal was part of a broader agreement on reorganizing the 47,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.

(Reporting by Aiko Hayashi, Editing by Dean Yates)