The U.S. Agency for Global Media has informed the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’ Department of Public Lands that it will terminate its long-term lease on Aguiguan Point.
Aguiguan Point is home to the Saipan portion of the Robert E. Kamosa Transmitting Station, which the agency confirmed last week was being shuttered. The shortwave site has been used since the mid-1990s to beam Voice of America and Radio Free Asia broadcasts across the Pacific.
According to a report in the Saipan Tribune, Department of Public Lands Secretary Teresita Santos confirmed that USAGM had informed the department it would not seek renewal of the lease, but no timeline for terminating the lease was provided. Santos was quoted as saying that once the lease is terminated, the department would issue a request for proposals for the site.
In addition to Aguiguan Point, the Kamosa Transmitting Station operates a transmission system on the island of Tinian. That site operates on land leased from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Saipan is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands — a territory of the United States — located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Philippines.
[Letter: “USAGM’s Quiet Closure of the Marianas Shortwave Site Does Not Bear Well”]
