SDP to ask Roos to discuss Futenma issue

April 15, 2010
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A junior Japanese coalition party says it will ask the US Ambassador in Tokyo to discuss its proposal to relocate a US airbase in Okinawa to US territories in the western Pacific.

On Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said moving the US Futenma airbase out of Japan would be difficult.

But Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima, who is a cabinet member, said officials of Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas would welcome the base there.

She also said although Tinian is willing to let US Marines use an existing runway on the island, other members of the cabinet are not taking the offer seriously.

Her party and another coalition partner, the People's New Party, will ask US Ambassador to Japan, John Roos, to exchange views on a possible Futenma relocation site.

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada has said that for the time being Roos and he are in charge of working out details of the relocation.

Separately, two Democratic Party lawmakers asked the government on Tuesday to study the relocation to the Northern Mariana Islands, including Tinian, in detail. The two recently met a senior official of the islands.

2010/04/15 08:01(JST)
(JST: UTC+9hrs.)