Apr 28 06:49 AM US/Eastern
(AP) - TOKYO, April 28 (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Wednesday presented to Torao Tokuda, a key figure in Tokunoshima Island, an idea to transfer up to 1,000 U.S. Marines or some of their drills to the island from Okinawa Prefecture, but the idea was rejected, Tokuda's son said.
The meeting between Hatoyama and Tokuda marked the first time that the government had effectively sounded out Tokunoshima about the relocation idea as the mayors of the three towns on the Kagoshima Prefecture island turned down Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano's request for a meeting earlier this month.
Tokuda's son Takeshi Tokuda, a House of Representatives member of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said at a press conference that the premier revealed the idea when he visited his wheelchair-bound father, a retired politician who hails from the island, at his home in Tokyo earlier in the day.
"A U.S. base is not acceptable," Torao Tokuda, who heads the Tokushukai medical institution and is regarded as a powerful figure in political and medical circles, was quoted as responding to the prime minister.
Hatoyama's contact with Torao Tokuda before meeting with local community leaders triggered criticism from the opposition camp, with the LDP's policy chief, Shigeru Ishiba, saying, "I don't know why he met with a local magnate instead of those who understand the public will."
Specifically, Hatoyama told the elder Tokuda that the government is seeking to transfer a maximum of 1,000 of the around 2,500 troops stationed at the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Ginowan to Tokunoshima, 200 kilometers northeast of Okinawa, or transferring some of the drills currently conducted at the facility, Takeshi Tokuda said.
But no other concrete plans were presented during the meeting that lasted one hour and 20 minutes, he said.
Later Wednesday, Hatoyama declined to reveal the details of his discussion with Torao Tokuda when he spoke with reporters, while offering an apology again to the people of Tokunoshima for having caused them concern due to speculation that they may have to host the Futemma facility.
Hatoyama added that although he presented various ideas to Torao Tokuda, they do not necessarily constitute a final government plan.
Hatoyama also asked the elder Tokuda, who is unable to speak because of illness and expresses himself by typing words on a display, to help set up a meeting between the prime minister and the three mayors soon, according to his son.
Takeshi Tokuda said he had contacted the mayors in the afternoon but he is not sure when such a meeting can take place.
Among various ideas, Hatoyama favors transferring the air station, located in the center of a residential area, to Tokunoshima to fulfill a general election pledge made last year to move the base out of the southernmost prefecture, while local residents are strongly opposed to the idea.
Roughly 15,000 of the around 27,000 residents of the island staged a protest rally earlier this month against the transfer of the Futemma facility.
Takeshi Tokuda said at the press conference that he had told Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano during a meeting Wednesday afternoon, "Whatever the size, Tokunoshima has no room for a U.S. base."
In Tokunoshima, Katsuhiro Kota, secretary general of a local peace and environment group, said Hatoyama may have met with Torao Tokuda so that he could have an excuse to give up on the idea of transferring the military facility to the island.
"If (a big shot like) Mr. Tokuda is opposed to it, (Hatoyama) has no other option but to give up on the Tokunoshima plan," he said, adding his group will continue raising objections to the plan until the government formally ditches it.
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