April 20, 2010 12:21
TOKYO, April 20 KYODO - Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Tuesday openly questioned the feasibility of an idea reportedly favored by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama for relocating a contentious U.S. Marine base in Okinawa Prefecture, while Hatoyama maintained his vow to resolve the matter next month.
The seven-month-old government has not officially announced any relocation plan yet, but it is, according to government sources, planning to transfer the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station, currently in a crowded residential area in Ginowan, to Tokunoshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, about 200 kilometers north of Okinawa.
Hatoyama on Tuesday vowed again to end the months-long row on where to transfer the base by the end of May as he has promised, despite a huge rally Sunday on Tokunoshima against the relocation making the prospect of gaining public support and U.S. consent more difficult.
Washington has stated that gaining approval of nearby residents is a precondition for giving its consideration to any potential relocation sites.
''Should we have to ask Tokunoshima (to host Futemma), I believe it would be quite difficult (to have it accept the plan) under the current circumstances,'' Kitazawa told a press conference.
''It has become even clearer that transferring it (the Futemma facility) to any location other than Okinawa is an extremely tough thing to do,'' the outspoken minister said.
Kitazawa, a member of Hatoyama's ruling Democratic Party of Japan, nonetheless, was critical of some fellow DPJ lawmakers who demanded Monday that the government drop Tokunoshima from its list of relocation candidate sites, saying that they need to have a stronger sense of being members of the ruling coalition.
Speaking to reporters separately in front of his official residence Tuesday morning, Hatoyama said, ''I have said that I will resolve this by the end of May, so I only work hard toward that end with determination.''
Asked if the course of the relocation issue could affect the prime minister's fate, Kitazawa denied the possibility and stressed that the government will win public understanding if it deals with the matter sincerely.
But with the dispute putting Hatoyama in a precarious position, Yoshito Sengoku, national strategy minister, has even hinted at the possibility of a double election being held if Hatoyama steps down before this summer's vote for the House of Councillors.
The base relocation row involves a 2006 accord between Japan and the United States to transfer the Marine base to a less crowded area in another city of the southernmost prefecture as part of a broader realignment for U.S. forces stationed in Japan.
Hatoyama has been reviewing the bilateral accord agreed to by a previous Liberal Democratic Party-led government in a bid to ease the burden on people in Okinawa, which has hosted a large bulk of the U.S. forces, but Washington has pressed Tokyo to stick to the original deal.
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