"This is an agreement between governments, not between politicians," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

"We expect agreements to be respected... that whoever is in power will respect the agreements that have been forged by previous administrations," he added.

Approval ratings for Hatoyama, the center-left leader who took power in a landslide election last August, have plunged to below 20 percent after he approved an agreement to keep the Futenma air base on Okinawa despite his election promise to move it off the island.

Japanese media, quoting unnamed party sources, said the premier and Ichiro Ozawa, the ruling party's powerful chief election strategist, would discuss whether Hatoyama should resign ahead of an election for the upper house of parliament slated for July 11.

The base accord calls for shifting Futenma from a densely populated section of Okinawa to the more remote Camp Schwab, and not off the southern island as envisaged by the base's critics.

A senior US defense official meanwhile said construction had begun at Camp Schwab with the aim of completing the relocation and building one or more new runways at the site by 2014.

As part of the deal, Tokyo and Washington confirmed that 8,000 Marines would be moved to the US territory of Guam as previously agreed.

The official, while stressing the US need to "lighten the footprint" of its military presence on Okinawa, acknowledged there was an uphill battle in convincing the island's residents to support relocation rather than moving the base entirely off the island.

"It is clear to us as it has been from the outset... that there is a lot of work that we have to do, that the government of Japan has to do, to sell this agreement, sell this understanding, sell this runway construction project and to address the legitimate concerns that the people of Okinawa have," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An Asahi Shimbun poll released Monday showed 57 percent of Japanese voters disapproved of the government's decision to keep the base on Okinawa, with 27 percent supporting it.

Okinawa has had a heavy US military presence since World War II.

Hatoyama stressed last Friday that US military bases are "necessary for Japan's security," and cited rising tensions in East Asia following the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in March that Seoul blamed on North Korea.

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