Okinawa, Tokyo to restart US military policy talks dormant since 2013

The recent indictment of a U.S. Marine in the killing of an Okinawan woman has helped revive high-level talks between Japan’s central government and Okinawa prefecture that have been dormant for more than a decade.

A Marine’s indictment in the killing of an Okinawan woman has helped revive high-level talks between Japan’s central government and Okinawa prefecture. Okinawa Gov. Genta Koja speaks at the prefectural office in Naha, Okinawa, on Oct. 5, 2026. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes) A Marine’s indictment in the killing of an Okinawan woman has helped revive high-level talks between Japan’s central government and Okinawa prefecture after a 13-year hiatus. The Okinawa Policy Council will meet Friday in Tokyo for the first time since 2013, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara announced Monday. Okinawa Gov. Genta Koja and other prefectural officials will attend, a spokesman for the prefecture’s Planning and Coordination Division said by phone Wednesday.

The agenda remains undecided, he said. Some Japanese government officials must speak to the media on condition of anonymity. Koja requested the meeting in an Oct. 7 letter to Kihara and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, citing the arrest of Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, three days earlier on suspicion of homicide and robbery. Ballard was later charged with robbery causing death in the killing of Anna Yagi, 39, early Oct. 3 at a hotel in Naha, Okinawa’s capital. He has denied the allegations, according to police. “The fact that another incident of this nature has occurred leaves us no choice but to conclude that the U.S.