Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada will meet in Hawaii on Tuesday, and are likely to discuss a disputed plan to shift U.S. forces, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said yesterday.

The United States and Japan are attempting to resolve differences over the location of some of the 50,000 U.S. military personnel based in Japan, half of them stationed on the southern island of Okinawa.

“;I would suspect that the issue of the road map will come up”; in the meeting between Clinton and Okada, Crowley said, referring to an accord between the U.S. and Japan to move the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station to another location on Okinawa.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which took office in September, promised in its campaign to “;re-examine”; the accord. Residents of Okinawa, which has been the site of fatal accidents and crimes involving U.S. military personnel during the past half-century, have demanded the facility be moved to another prefecture.

“;We meet with the Japanese foreign minister often. We have a wide range of both direct issues regarding our alliance and regional security issues,”; Crowley said yesterday.

Hatoyama said Monday during a news conference in Tokyo that he wants to resolve the dispute “;within months.”; He has resisted American pressure to implement a 2006 agreement to keep the base on the island, while declining to commit to another location in response to local complaints.

The dispute threatens to delay a $10.3 billion plan to build replacement facilities for a new base and relocate 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. President Barack Obama called on Japan in November to resolve the matter “;expeditiously.”; Jan. 19 marks the 50th anniversary since the two countries signed a security treaty.

“;I hope the foreign ministers can discuss the future of the Japan-U.S. alliance, because this is an important year to start that,”; Hatoyama said this week.

Clinton will be in Hawaii next week to give a speech on Asia-Pacific security cooperation, en route to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, where she will meet officials to discuss security and political cooperation and global climate change.