US: differences with Japan won't hurt alliance

A senior U.S. diplomat says that differences with Japan over the relocation of a Marine airfield are not damaging the U.S.-Japanese alliance.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters Tuesday that current U.S.-Japanese tension is nothing compared to the Japanese anger over the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by two Marines and a U.S. sailor.

He says that the U.S. has been clear that a 2006 agreement to move the airfield to a less crowded part of the southern island of Okinawa should be carried out.

He says that the Obama administration is trying to be flexible and not appear intransigent with the new Japanese government.

But Campbell says that the U.S. believes "quite deeply" that having American forces in Japan is essential to Asian security.