Barack Obama is set to arrive in Japan later on Friday, kicking off his first visit to Asia as US president as he seeks to soothe relations with Tokyo strained by a row over a US military base. The visit is Obama's first stop on a nine-day, four-nation Asian tour, that will take him on to a regional economic summit in Singapore, then to China and finally to South Korea. In Japan, Obama is due to hold talks with Yukio Hatoyama, the country's new prime minister, who was swept to power in August vowing to build a more equal partnership with the US. Obama will also present what White House officials have called a "major policy speech" on US relations with Asia that they say will be aimed at a broad regional audience. But it will be the future of the five-decade-old Japan-US alliance that will be first on the US president's agenda as he lands in Tokyo. Hatoyama has promised to halt a Japanese naval mission supporting the US-led war in Afghanistan, review basing agreements for 47,000 US troops stationed in Japan, and explore the possibility of a new Asian trading block that would exclude the US.
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