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U.S. commander says no new bases needed in Asia-Pacific

16 June 2012 04:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The U.S. military will not build new bases in the Asia-Pacific as it rebalances its strategic priorities to the region, but will rather rely on allies and partners to pick up the tab, a senior commander said here on Friday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"We’re not really interested in building any more U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific," said Pacific Command Commander Samuel Locklear during a press briefing at the Pentagon. "We shouldn’t have to at this point in time."

Locklear said the U.S. military will rely on allies and partners in the region for shared use of military facilities, and those arrangements can be bilateral as well as trilateral.

"We should be able to find ways to not only bilaterally, but in some cases multilaterally ... find these locations where we can put security forces," Locklear said.

The U.S. military is shifting its focus toward the Asia-Pacific, but the Pentagon is also faced with huge budget cuts totaling 487 billion dollars in 10 years. If Congress doesn’t act this year, it may face across-the-board automatic cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of last year.

Although the Pentagon has indicated that operations in the Asia- Pacific will not be affected, doubts still remain.