Apr 12 06:51 AM US/Eastern
TOKYO, April 12 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Social Democratic Party's Diet affairs chief said Monday he is convinced that a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa Prefecture could be relocated to Tinian, an island in the western Pacific to which the SDP has advocated moving the base instead of elsewhere in the prefecture.
Kantoku Teruya, who visited the island over the past weekend with Zenshin Takamine, chairman of the Okinawa prefectural assembly, told reporters that during their meeting, Tinian Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz expressed willingness to accept the Futemma Air Station and the transfer of Marines deployed in Okinawa.
Teruya, a House of Representatives lawmaker representing a constituency in Okinawa, said the Tinian mayor appeared to hope for the benefits the Marine transfer could bring to the local economy, including jobs and infrastructure development.
"I have come to be firmly convinced" of the possibility that Futemma can be moved to the U.S. territory of Guam, Saipan or Tinian -- in the Northern Mariana Islands -- as the SDP has advocated, Teruya said.
Noting that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government, in which the SDP serves as a junior coalition partner, does not appear to have seriously considered relocating Futemma abroad, Teruya said, "I want the prime minister to enter talks with the United States after seriously considering the SDP plan."
He said he will strongly urge Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano to formally consider the plan in future bilateral talks.
A current Japan-U.S. deal on U.S. forces realignment calls for moving functions of the Futemma facility to a less populated part of the main island of Okinawa, while requiring the transfer of about 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.
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