April 27, 2010
Japanese officials will have intensive talks with US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell to decide the government's plan for the relocation of the US Marines' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa.
Campbell is to arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday.
In view of Sunday's mass rally in Okinawa the Japanese government wants to transfer as many functions as possible of the Futenma airfield outside the prefecture. Moving the base out of the prefecture was the key demand of the demonstrators.
The government is reportedly mapping out several candidate sites for relocation in and outside Okinawa Prefecture.Concretely, it is to propose that a helicopter pad be constructed on a land section of the US Marines' Camp Schwab base and it will ask the US to redeploy a chopper squadron to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture.
The US maintains that the existing 2006 agreement to relocate Futenma's functions to a less-crowded coastal area near Camp Schwab is the best option. It is asking the Japanese government to study the possibility of modifying the existing agreement. The US insists that coordinated operations between Marine ground forces and helicopters is indispensable, thus they must be at a nearby location.
Some Japanese government officials are considering a plan which would drive a pile foundation in a shallow shore area off Camp Schwab to construct a runway above. They say the idea is less harmful to environment than the existing plan.
But other officials say it would be difficult to obtain local consent for the idea.
2010/04/27 06:15(JST)
(JST: UTC+9hrs.)
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