Tokyo and Washington have agreed to cut the number of US marines stationed in Japan by 7,000 as part of wide-ranging plans under which Japan’s self-defence forces will play a bigger role in defending the country.

The agreement, signed in Washington on Saturday, followed intense negotiations last week to wrap up ponderous discussions over the locations and functions of US bases. Failure to agree on details, part of the US’s global strategy to reduce the size but increase the mobility of its forces, had been putting a severe strain on otherwise good US-Japanese relations.