Japan Press Weekly

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2022 June 1 - 7 [US FORCES]

US may deploy 2 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to Yokosuka

The Japanese Communist Party Kanagawa prefectural committee on May 31 submitted a written request to Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo and Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, demanding that Japan disapprove the U.S. request for permanent deployment of two U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at the U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base (Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Pref.).

The USS Abraham Lincoln entered the Yokosuka base on May 21 and stayed there until May 26. The Yokosuka-based USS Ronald Reagan completed deck landing qualification training on May 25 and became ready for operational missions. The USS Ronald Reagan is now navigating off Iwo-jima Islands which are administratively part of Tokyo in the western Pacific. In effect, the U.S. is expanding to a 2-carrier task force to operate in areas surrounding Japan.

Tokumaru Takushi, a member of the JCP Kanagawa committee, criticized the de facto stationing of two U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers without consent from Japan for adding to the increasing military tensions in East Asia.

The JCP written request demands that Japan refuse its consent to port calls of U.S. carriers as well as to the deployment of two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to Yokosuka, revoke its consent to the homeporting of a U.S. carrier in Yokosuka, and apply Japan’s entry quarantine law to U.S. crewmembers by amending the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.