Thousands of residents in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa gathered to encourage their motion to move a U.S. marine base out of the region.

The protest was running against present plans to re-site Futenma Air Base in the Okinawa area. A 2006 agreement between the U.S. and Japan legislated that the air base, along with some others in the area, be removed to make way for facilities that would benefit the island and Japan as a whole. The Futenma base, however, would be reinitiated in a remoter area, according to the agreement.

Currently, Washington is pushing for a resolution of the 2006 agreement before U.S. president Barack Obama’s scheduled visit on November 12, but is experiencing problems due to differing opinions of Okinawan residents.

“Okinawa’s future is for us, the Okinawan people to decide,” said Yoichi Iha, the mayor of Okinawa’s Ginowan area where Futenma is located. “We cannot let Americans decide it for us.”

Okinawa, an island located far south of mainland Japan, makes it an ideal staging ground for reconnaisance and information gathering, especially because of its proximity to mainland China and North Korea.

The island, however, houses approximately half of all the American troops in Japan, provided that it is only equivalent to 0.6 percent of Japan’s total land mass.