President pledges stronger Asia ties

[unhappycamper]

President pledges stronger Asia ties
By Teri Weaver and Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, November 16, 2009

TOKYO — President Barack Obama launched his inaugural trip to Asia this weekend by calling for a revitalized alliance with Japan and declaring the United States a member of the Pacific region.

Nuclear threats from North Korea, rising extremism in island nations, growing trade between the United States and Asia, concerns about climate change, and continued human trafficking all unify interests on both sides of the Pacific, Obama said.

“I want everyone to know, and I want everyone in America to know, that we have a stake in the future of the region, because what happens here has a direct effect on what happens on our lives at home,” the president said at a morning speech in Tokyo before a crowd of 2,000 invited guests.

Obama’s call for a stronger relationship with Pacific nations comes as the United States faces a test of wills with Japan, one of its greatest economic and military allies. The two countries are at odds over the future of the U.S. troop presence on Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost island that hosts nearly half of the almost 50,000 American servicemembers in the country.

“That is why, at this critical moment in history, the two of us have not only reaffirmed our alliance, we’ve agreed to deepen it,” Obama said Saturday morning in the main concert arena of Suntory Hall.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66123