Apr 5 10:43 PM US/Eastern
TOKYO, April 6 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano has told Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima that the government plans to transfer a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa Prefecture first to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, in line with his pledge to move it outside Okinawa, several government sources said Monday.
The top government spokesman, who has headed a government panel aimed at finding a relocation site, conveyed the plan to Nakaima when they met at a Tokyo hotel last Thursday, the sources said.
After transferring the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station to the island, the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama then plans to construct a heliport on the Marines' Camp Schwab in Nago, also in Okinawa, and eventually relocate the facility to an artificial island to be built in waters off the Katsuren Peninsula in eastern Okinawa, according to the sources.
Since the campaign for last year's general election, Hatoyama has promised that his government will aim to move the Futemma airfield outside Okinawa so as to alleviate the base-hosting burden on people in the southernmost prefecture where the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan are stationed.
In an apparent bid to keep his promise, Hatoyama ordered Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and other ministers concerned in their meeting Friday to consider the plan, according to the sources.
On Monday evening, Hatoyama only said to reporters, "I asked the ministers to work hard in line with my plan."
"It would be the biggest fight for people, especially those in Okinawa, who have endured great suffering," the premier said.
But the three-stage relocation plan that has been conveyed to Okinawa slightly differs from what Washington has been told.
On March 26, Okada told U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos that Tokyo is planning to move a helicopter unit of the Futemma facility in Ginowan temporarily to a helipad to be built at Camp Schwab and eventually to the yet-to-be-built artificial island near the peninsula or Tokunoshima Island, north of Okinawa, according to diplomatic sources.
Hirano also advocates a plan to build a large-scale base hosting both U.S. forces as well as Japan's Self-Defense Forces, by combining the Air SDF's Naha Air Base as well as the U.S. Army's Naha Port on reclaimed land off the peninsula, the sources said.
But Nakaima has been dead set against any relocation of Futemma within the prefecture and conveyed his opposition to Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa during their meeting Friday.
Following the meeting with Kitazawa, Nakaima told reporters that he is confused as to who is in charge of dealing with local people -- Hirano or Kitazawa.
The government led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan is seeking to transfer Futemma outside the prefecture against an existing plan agreed upon in 2006 between a previous Liberal Democratic Party-led government and the United States to move the facility to the coastal area of Camp Schwab with reclamation
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