TOKYO, April 15 KYODO
April 15 2010 16:08
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Thursday reiterated his promise to win approval from the United States and local governments on alternative sites for the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture by the end of May.
But with the deadline looking increasingly difficult to be met, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said every detail of the relocation does not necessarily have to be worked out by then, even if the government is committed to obtaining such an approval.
''I don't take the position that there is no agreement or acceptance unless everything has been worked out, including technical details,'' Hirano told a press conference.
Hirano's remark is apparently aimed at making it easier to claim a resolution of the matter by the deadline, given that the deadlock in the talks with the United States and the local governments could threaten Hatoyama's chances of remain prime minister.
''I strongly asked President Obama for his cooperation on the issue,'' Hatoyama told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday morning, after his return from the United States, where he held 10 minutes of unofficial talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, promising to resolve the matter by the end of May.
Asked if he will announce a single proposal accepted by the United States and local governments at the end of May, Hatoyama said, ''That's correct, because settlement is settlement.''
''It points to a situation where we can say, 'Let's go with it,' and see such a direction,'' he added.
Meanwhile, senior members of the Social Democratic Party asked the government to seriously consider the possibility of relocating the Futemma base to western Pacific islands, such as Saipan and Tinian, in line with its demand.
Secretary General Yasumasa Shigeno and Diet affairs chief Kantoku Teruya, who represents Okinawa, made the request to Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kinya Takino. Takino said he will convey the request to Hirano, according to the lawmakers from the SDP, which is a junior coalition partner of Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan.
On the prospect of the government almost certainly being unable to settle the Futemma issue by the end of next month, Shigeno said after the meeting with Takino that the deadline is not something agreed upon among the three ruling coalition parties but one that Hatoyama set on his own.
''I was worried if that can be accomplished, and the situation where that's gradually becoming more of a reality is not a preferable thing at all,'' he told reporters, referring to the likelihood that the deadline will not be met. ''We make this proposal to break the impasse.''
The Hatoyama government is now focusing on a plan to transfer the helicopter functions of the Marine base to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, about 200 kilometers north of Okinawa, according to government sources. That is among the plans believed to be floated within the almost-seven-month-old DPJ-led government.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada denied the same day a media report which said Japan's proposals to relocate the Futemma facility to Tokunoshima or another area in Okinawa were effectively rejected by Washington, telling a parliamentary committee ''That is not the case.''
==Kyodo
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