WASHINGTON -- The proposed use of Japanese shipyards and hangars for maintaining American warships and planes will be considered thoroughly, Tokyo's Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said Thursday.
"Conducting MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) on American destroyers and fighters inside Japan is very important in thinking about Japan-U.S. defense cooperation," Kihara said at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington. He was asked about the logic of repairing American ships in Japan to eliminate the time spent returning them to the U.S.
