GINOWAN (Japan) - IDYLLIC beach resorts jostle for space with US military bases on Japan's subtropical island of Okinawa, at the centre of a feud that may cast a shadow over US President Barack Obama's visit to Japan next week.

Nowhere is the contrast between the US troop presence and the laid-back local culture more jarring than in Ginowan. Seen from a hilltop, the city's low-rise concrete buildings, including schools and hospitals, huddle around the perimeter of the Futenma US Marine air base, a dispute over which is straining the 50-year-old security alliance between Tokyo and Washington.

Many of Ginowan's nearly 90,000 residents welcome a plan to relocate the base, especially after safety fears rekindled by a 2004 helicopter crash in the city added to irritation over noise, but others are ambivalent.

'I want to get rid of it,' said Toshio Arakaki, 52, whose three children go to a primary school a stone's throw from the base. 'If they are going to replace it, they should find somewhere not just outside Okinawa, but outside Japan. Okinawa has had enough.'

Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 to close the base and move it to the coastal town of Henoko, in a less populated part of the island, as part of a reorganisation that would involve up to 8,000 Marines being shifted to the U.S. territory of Guam.

But Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has vowed to seek a more equal relationship with the United States, says he wants more time to review the relocation plan, which is seen by many as damaging to the environment. -- REUTERS