Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida reportedly summoned Caroline Kennedy, US ambassador to Japan, to lodge a protest about Shimabukuro’s death.
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Japan lodged a diplomatic protest late Thursday with the United States after a USA base worker was arrested in relation to the suspicious death of a woman on Okinawa, media reported, a week before a high-profile visit to the country by President Barack Obama.
Police said they believe Shinzato and Shimabukuo did not know each other.
The office worker from Uruma was last heard from on April 28 at around 8 p.m. when she told her boyfriend that she was going for a walk.
Following the police questioning and ongoing searches for Shimabukuro, police said they had identified a body as being that of the missing woman and had identified her by both dental and DNA records.
The police said suspicions were raised as she left home without her auto or wallet.
Speaking in Washington, Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook described the news as “an appalling tragedy”.
The Japanese and U.S. governments moved swiftly to avoid the incident having a negative impact on the Japan-U.S. bilateral relationship ahead of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in central Japan next week, and U.S. President Barack Obama’s subsequent visit to Hiroshima as the first sitting U.S. president to go to the atomic-bombed city.
The US now has about 50,000 military personnel in Japan as part of the post-war security arrangement – about half of them are based in Okinawa.
Kennedy pledged to “cooperate fully with the Okinawa police and Japanese government and redouble our efforts to make sure that this never happens again”.
The U.S. military employee denies being involved in Shimabukuro’s disappearance. “I told her an incident like this is inexcusable and that I feel strong indignation”, Kishida told reporters after the meeting.
Global Positioning System data from Shimabukuro’s smartphone shows her last confirmed location was an industrial area near her home in Uruma, according to the sources.
According to the NHK broadcaster, the residents of the prefecture are now standing outside the Kadena Air Base demanding its closure.
“This incident has occurred precisely because the base is there”, Onaga told reporters at Narita airport near Tokyo upon his return from the United States, where he urged US officials to listen to Okinawa residents’ opinions on the Futenma issue.
Anti-US sentiment was stoked earlier this year after a US sailor was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman at a hotel in Naha in the south of Okinawa.
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In 1995 the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three USA servicemen sparked massive protests, prompting Washington to pledge efforts to strengthen troop discipline to prevent such crimes and reduce the United States footprint on the island.
