Between
1945 and ’72, the U.S. ruled the islands, and to this day the U.S.
military controls two of them — Kuba and Taisho. The U.S. used Kuba for
bombing practice until 1978. The status-of-forces agreement between
Tokyo and Washington says that “the facilities and areas used by the
United States armed forces shall be returned to Japan whenever they are
no longer needed for purposes of this Agreement.” Yet the pair of
islands remains under U.S. control 35 years after the U.S. last
conducted bombing runs there.
Sankei via Getty Images
Three of the eight islands
In
fact, Japanese citizens cannot land on either of the islands without
first getting permission from the U.S. military, Akira Kato, a
professor of political science at Tokyo’s Obirin University, said in an
April report by the East-West Center in Washington, D.C.
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