Japan Says It Will Make Good on Vow to Pay for U.S. Troop Support : Asia: Statement may settle dispute over $300-million increase promised for costs of utilities, civilians working on American bases.

WASHINGTON —  In an attempt to head off a contretemps between Washington and Tokyo, Japanese Defense Minister Tokuichiro Tamazawa said Thursday that Japan will make a “maximum effort” to pay the United States the additional money it earlier had promised for the support of American troops stationed in Japan.

So far, to the consternation of American military planners, the Japanese Defense Agency has budgeted for only half of the $300-million increase it was scheduled to pay the United States next year as “host-nation support” for American forces. Under an agreement worked out in 1991, Japan was supposed to assume the full costs next year of more than 22,000 Japanese civilians who work on American military bases, as well as the bases’ utility bills.

The issue is important, because any dispute over the costs of the bases could affect the close security relationship between the United States and Japan. Despite the frequent economic frictions between the two countries and the recent political upheavals in Japan, Washington and Tokyo have managed to avoid any major change in the military alliance that prevailed during the Cold War.

Tamazawa, who met in Washington on Thursday with Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Vice President Al Gore, insisted that the new Japanese government headed by Socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama eventually will be able to pay more for the U.S. troops than is now earmarked for the budget. Japanese government ministries will be reviewing the issue during the next few months, he said.

“We would like to ask the United States to please watch and see what will happen,” he explained in an interview with The Times and with the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s leading newspapers. He did not specify how much more Japan will pay and did not say whether it will contribute all the money originally promised.

This year, Japan is spending about $2.5 billion in host-nation support to offset the costs of the 44,000 American troops on its soil. That sum includes 75% of both the utility bills on the bases and the salaries of Japanese workers there. Under the earlier agreement, Japan’s share of these costs was supposed to go up to 100% in the next fiscal year, which begins in April, 1995.

But the Japanese Defense Agency was told this summer that its overall budget, which is about $47 billion this year, can increase by no more than 0.9% next year. And defense officials decided that the scheduled payments to the Americans might have to be scaled back along with Japan’s other defense costs.

“We were of course very concerned about not lowering the level of (Japanese) defense,” Tamazawa said Thursday. “And at the same time we were interested in paying (the United States) for the labor costs” of Japanese workers.

The suggestion that Japan’s payments to the United States might be as much as $150 million lower than expected raised some fears about how U.S. military forces in Asia might be affected. Richard Macke, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, visited Tokyo for top-level meetings last month.

In the interview, Tamazawa also contended that Japan should be granted a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, without taking part in any U.N. peacekeeping operations that would involve military conflict.

Japan recently agreed to send Japanese troops to provide humanitarian aid to Rwandan refugees in Zaire. But it did so only after repeatedly delaying the departure of the troops and forbidding them to enter Rwanda because there is no cease-fire there.

Some American officials have argued that it is unfair for Japan to insist on terms for Security Council membership in which U.S. forces might be forced to shed blood in U.N. peacekeeping operations, while Japanese forces would be freed from any similar danger.

But the defense minister said that Japan is worried about being forced to comply with a U.N. resolution in which it would be required to send its troops for a peacekeeping operation somewhere in Asia.

He noted that Russia and China, which now have two of the five permanent seats on the Security Council, have not sent their forces abroad on peacekeeping missions.