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Japanese PM says fully moving US base difficult
Source: Xinhua |
May 4, 2010, Tuesday
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JAPANESE Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met with Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima in Naha City, Okinawa today to explain the difficulties of moving a US Marine base fully out of Japan's southernmost prefecture and seek the governor's support to keep the base on the island.
According to local media sources, Hatoyama said that whilst visiting Japan's southernmost prefecture he intended to ask the prefectural government to continue bearing the burden of the US Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station and said he will apologize to the people of Okinawa over his government's handling of the Futemma relocation issue.
For his part Nakaima urged the central government to listen sincerely to increasing local calls for the Futemma facility to be moved outside the prefecture.
Hatoyama, local sources said, maintained that while a finalized plan has not been settled on he hopes to resolve the matter together with the governor and the people of Okinawa.
In his first visit to Okinawa since taking office seven months ago, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader was met outside the city hall in Naha prior to his meeting with Nakaima by hundreds of demonstrators shouting, "Hatoyama keep your promises!"
Hatoyama raised the hopes of the local citizens of Okinawa during his election campaign as he promised to move the base off the island to ease the burden on the people.
Hatoyama has a self-imposed deadline of the end of May to resolve the issue, the latest plan of which would see a new airstrip built on an elevated platform in the shallow waters off the coast in Nago, Okinawa, instead of on reclaimed land from the sea according to an existing bilateral accord reached in 2006 between the US and Japan.
The central government's current plan also involves the possibility of transferring some of the exercises conducted by the air units at the Futemma base to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, a tiny island about 200 kilometers northeast of the main Okinawa island and 1,400 kilometers south of Tokyo.
According to local media sources, Hatoyama said that whilst visiting Japan's southernmost prefecture he intended to ask the prefectural government to continue bearing the burden of the US Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station and said he will apologize to the people of Okinawa over his government's handling of the Futemma relocation issue.
For his part Nakaima urged the central government to listen sincerely to increasing local calls for the Futemma facility to be moved outside the prefecture.
Hatoyama, local sources said, maintained that while a finalized plan has not been settled on he hopes to resolve the matter together with the governor and the people of Okinawa.
In his first visit to Okinawa since taking office seven months ago, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader was met outside the city hall in Naha prior to his meeting with Nakaima by hundreds of demonstrators shouting, "Hatoyama keep your promises!"
Hatoyama raised the hopes of the local citizens of Okinawa during his election campaign as he promised to move the base off the island to ease the burden on the people.
Hatoyama has a self-imposed deadline of the end of May to resolve the issue, the latest plan of which would see a new airstrip built on an elevated platform in the shallow waters off the coast in Nago, Okinawa, instead of on reclaimed land from the sea according to an existing bilateral accord reached in 2006 between the US and Japan.
The central government's current plan also involves the possibility of transferring some of the exercises conducted by the air units at the Futemma base to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, a tiny island about 200 kilometers northeast of the main Okinawa island and 1,400 kilometers south of Tokyo.
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