New candidate site necessary to move U.S. base facility: Maehara

NAHA, Japan, Oct. 3 Kyodo -
Land Minister Seiji Maehara, who is also state minister in charge of Okinawa,
said Saturday that the new Japanese government will move forward with a plan to
review the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in
the southernmost prefecture.
''I doubt whether the relocation will go ahead as planned and there is a need
to consider looking for a new location under the administration'' of Prime
Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Maehara said without elaborating.
''Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa are in
talks with the United States and I'm waiting for the outcome of their
negotiations,'' added the land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister.
''It has taken too much time for it to be returned,'' Maehara said, referring
to the 1996 agreement under which the United States would return the Futemma
base site, located in a crowded residential area, to Japan in five to seven
years. ''If a serious accident occurs there, it could not only cause trouble to
local residents but affect the bilateral alliance built on the security
treaty.''
''We need to create a framework to make the relocation take place and get it
moving,'' he said.
Earlier on Saturday, Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima said in a meeting with
Maehara that relocating the airport functions of the Futemma air station within
the prefecture is a practical option, reiterating his backing of the plan to
move them to Camp Schwab in Nago by 2014.
Nakaima told Maehara that moving the facility out of Okinawa is the ''best''
possible scenario but ''is not easy from a practical viewpoint.''
Nakaima and Maehara held talks a day after senior officials of the Democratic
Party of Japan-led government had informal discussions over differing opinions
within the government regarding whether to relocate the facility outside of
Okinawa or within the prefecture.
The realignment is emerging as a sticky issue between the United States and the
new government, which wants to review the planned realignment of U.S. forces in
Japan as part of its policy to seek ''equal'' Japan-U.S. ties.
Relocation outside the prefecture, as sought by the DPJ, would go against a
2006 Japan-U.S. accord on the plan, which was reached by Washington and the
previous administration led by the Liberal Democratic Party. U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton has indicated that Washington sees the agreement as the
basis for the planned realignment.
Maehara avoided discussing the issue in detail with Nakaima, only saying that
his role ''is to serve as a bridge'' between Okinawa and the government.
==Kyodo