Japan to resume talks with Okinawa on Futenma move

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December 20, 2006

Japan to resume talks with Okinawa on Futenma move

Kyodo News Service


NAHA, Japan — The Japanese government will resume talks with Okinawa Prefecture on Monday after a four-month hiatus in hopes of gaining their cooperation in realizing a Japan-U.S. agreed plan to relocate a Marine Corps airfield within the prefecture, a government source said Wednesday.

The Okinawa prefectural government will demand that Marine Corps Air Station Futenma be virtually closed within three years to eliminate dangers it has been posing on densely populated Ginowan where it is located, the source said.

Japan is eager to proceed with a plan discussed in May to relocate Futenma’s heliport functions to a new airfield to be built at Camp Schwab in Nago in the northern part of Okinawa.

The Nago municipal government has accepted the new airfield plan, but Tokyo has yet to gain the nod from the Okinawa prefectural government. Under current laws, landfills for the airfield construction will require authorization from the Okinawa governor.

Yoritaka Hanashiro, who heads the executive office of new Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, has said in a prefectural assembly committee, “Unless the government presents specific measures to eliminate the dangers [of Futenma], we will not proceed to the next stage of discussions.”

Nakaima, who took office last week, is seen to have shown more flexibility on the Futenma issue than his predecessor, Keiichi Inamine. The former governor has called for relocating the airfield outside of Okinawa and was strongly opposed to the Japan-U.S. plan to build two runways in a V-shaped formation on the coast and landfill area in Nago.

The central and Okinawa governments last met Aug. 29.

The relocation of Futenma is a main pillar of the overall plan for the realignment of U.S. military presence in Japan, which also includes moving 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam and dispersing flight drills from heavily concentrated bases to other facilities across the country.