JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a suspension of work on a new US base in Okinawa yesterday and the resumption of talks with the governor.

The national government and Okinawa’s prefectural government have been locked in a legal battle over relocating the base, with both sides suing the other.

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, who ordered a halt to the construction work last year, welcomed the decision as “very significant.”

Tokyo wants to move the US Marine Corps air station at Futenma, where flights pose a hazard to the surrounding city, to a more remote coastal location.

But Okinawans want the US military off the Ryukyu islands altogether after decades of unprosecuted murders, rapes and assaults by service personnel.

Around half of the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan, in a continuation of the post-World War II occupation, are based in the archipelago.