Negotiations started decades ago to remove U.S. Marines from Japan’s Okinawa island, but the first movement appears to have not started until just before Christmas 2024, when a contingent of 105 troops that were to have been sent there were redirected to Guam.

A deal signed 12 years ago as a result of negotiations that started in 1995 after three U.S. servicemen raped an Okinawa schoolgirl was to have led to the redeployment of 9,000 Marines from the island, reports The New York Times Tuesday.

But the redirection of the Marines in December was the first movement in a mass departure that remains two decades behind schedule, with the full removal of Marines from the island bases not expected to happen for more than a decade, as replacement bases on territories like Guam remain incomplete.

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