At noon, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and heads of both chambers of Japan's parliament offered silent prayers, together with about 4,900 other people in the ceremony, held at the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman's Mabuni area, the site of a bloody ground battle between Japan and US-led Allied Forces.

Speaking at the Okinawa Prefecture-sponsored ceremony, Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga expressed his unwavering resolve to block the planned relocation of the US Marine Corps' Futenma air station within the prefecture and reiterated the prefecture's demand for reductions in its burden of hosting US military facilities.

On the crash-landing of an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft of the US Marine Corps into waters off Okinawa last year and parachute training by the US military in the prefecture, Onaga said in a peace declaration, "These run counter to efforts to reduce our burdens." (Jiji Press)