Japan to End Govt-Ruling Bloc Panel on U.S. Base Relocation

Tokyo, March 3 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government will
effectively end its panel with ruling parties on the issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps's Futenma air station in Okinawa Prefecture, it was learned Wednesday.

The decision reflects a wide gap over candidate sites for the
relocation between the Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party,
two smaller coalition partners of the Democratic Party of Japan, informed
sources said.
In order to reach a final conclusion on the relocation issue by May
as promised by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the government apparently
ended up deciding to continue its work to select candidate relocation sites
behind closed doors, the sources said.
The PNP officially adopted the same day a proposal for transferring
the Futenma base in Ginowan in the southernmost island prefecture.
The PNP is calling for the Futenma base to be moved to an inland
site at the Marine's Camp Schwab in another Okinawa city of Nago or
integrated with the U.S. Air Force's Kadena base, also in the same
prefecture, for 15 years provisionally.
The government has unofficially put the PNP's Camp Schwab proposal
to the U.S. side, the sources said.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa has admitted that the government,
which is reviewing the existing plan to transfer Futenma's functions to an
offshore facility at Camp Schwab, is considering the feasibility of the
PNP-proposed onshore relocation plan.
Strongly opposed to the idea of relocating the Futenma base within
Okinawa, the SDP has grown cautious over such moves by the PNP and the
government.
The SDP will certainly raise an objection to the termination of
discussions at the panel, the sources said.
The party is seeking the transfer of the Futenma base to a location
outside Japan, including Guam. But it also picked nine domestic candidate
sites, including the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Omura air base in the
southwestern prefecture of Nagasaki, in case an early overseas transfer
becomes difficult.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told a press conference the
same day he is the one who can decide how the government should proceed with
work to choose a Futenma relocation site. He thus indicated the panel will
no longer be necessary.
Hatoyama, meanwhile, told a group of reporters that the panel
should be kept functioning and hold a meeting at an appropriate time.