Japan 'has no time' to meet US

Plans for a Washington meeting this week between Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been dropped.

Japan's government said the talks had been cancelled because of an inability to co-ordinate schedules.

The meeting had been planned to take place before US President Barack Obama visits Tokyo next week.

Ties between the countries have been strained by a row over a US military base on Japan's Okinawa island.

"The visit this time was cancelled as the Japanese side could not co-ordinate the timing amid various scheduling demands such as parliamentary sessions," Hirofumi Hirano, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.

"I don't think it will affect relations between Japan and the United States," the top government spokesman said.

Correspondents said the cancellation was partly because the Diet, Japan's parliament, was in session, but also because there appeared to be disagreement within the Japanese government about the direction of policy.

The top US diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, will visit Tokyo for talks on Thursday, the State Department has said.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was recently in Tokyo urging Japan to honour a 2006 agreement on relocating a US airbase to another part of Okinawa.

During his election campaign, new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said he wanted a more equal security relationship with the US - and promised a more "autonomous" foreign strategy.

The US has been Japan's key security ally since the end of World War II, and there are currently some 47,000 American troops in the country, most of them on Okinawa. Their presence provides Japan with a security guarantee.

Another sticking point between the US and Japan is the new government's decision to end an Indian Ocean refuelling mission in support of the war effort in Afghanistan. Japan wants to offer more civilian aid instead.