SDP Head Tells Okinawa Chiefs of Her Opposition to Henoko Plan

Naha, Okinawa Pref., May 25 (Jiji Press)--Social Democratic Party head Mizuho Fukushima told Okinawa leaders Tuesday that the party opposes a government plan to relocate a key U.S. base in Ginowan to the Henoko area in Nago, both in this southern prefecture.

In her meeting with Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima here,
Fukushima, also consumer affairs minister, renewed the SDP's stance of
opposing the plan, proposed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Nakaima asked Fukushima to keep trying to get the U.S. Marine
Corps's Futenma air station out of the U.S. base-concentrated prefecture.
Fukushima also held talks with Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine and
Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha.
In Nago, Fukushima told a press conference that she will not give
the nod to the Henoko option, which was agreed on by Washington recently, at
a cabinet meeting or to an oral announcement of the transfer plan by
Hatoyama.
But she stopped short of clarifying whether the SDP will depart
from the ruling block led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, if the
Futenma relocation plan is formally adopted by the government.
It is not a question of whether to leave the ruling coalition, she
said, stressing what is important for her party is to try hard to block the
construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa with its people.
In Tokyo the same day, senior members of the three coalition
parties, which also include the People's New Party, began to talks to
explore ways to keep the SDP within the coalition.