English.news.cn
2010-04-18 19:15:40
TOKYO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S President Barack Obama questioned Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's ability to " follow through" on resolving the issue of relocating a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa Prefecture, political sources said Sunday.
In discussions between the two leaders held recently in Washington on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit, Obama pointed out to Hatoyama that zero progress has been made on the increasingly thorny issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture, sources said Sunday, despite Hatoyama's self-imposed deadline of the end-of-May to settle the issue and pleas to Obama to "trust him."
Although Hatoyama told reporters in the U.S. capital that he didn't mention a relocation site by name to Obama, the Hatoyama- led Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government is honing in on a plan to transfer the helicopter functions of the U.S. military facility to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, about 200 kilometers north of Okinawa and 1,400 kilometers south of Tokyo, government sources revealed.
However, Washington has rejected the current proposal, in spite of the Japanese leader requesting Obama's cooperation on the issue and has vetoed another plan that would see the base relocated to an area off eastern Okinawa by reclaiming land from the sea.
Further adding to the U.S. base impasse, 15,000 residents of Tokunoshima Island gathered Sunday to protest against Hatoyama's idea of relocating the military facility to the tiny island with a population of just 26,000 people.
"Reports several days ago said the U.S. side is against the idea and so are locals. A plan for relocating the base to Tokunoshima is out of the question," local media quoted Tokunoshima town mayor Hideki Takaoka as saying at the rally Sunday.
"We, all the islanders, protest against the Futenma air base relocation to Tokunoshima," the mayors of the three towns on the island said in a written statement which they intend to send directly to Obama as a letter, along with photographs of Sunday's rally, local media reported.
"The letter is to deliver to him our united will to oppose a military base," Akira Okubo, the mayor of Isen Town, said to the local press recently.
Okubo was quoted as saying he rejects the suggested influx of subsidies the community could expect from the central government if it accepts the base.
"Easy money will deprive people of their self-reliance. We don' t want subsidies that will bring no benefits and will divide the community," he said.
The U.S. government has said the next host town must agree to the proposal before the Japanese government can present it to Washington and has consistently urged Japan to stick to an existing accord inked in 2006 that was years in the making, involving the heliport functions of the Futemma facility being transferred to a coastal area of the U.S. Marines' Camp Schwab in the city of Nago, Okinawa by 2014.
Part of he 2006 relocation accord, estimated to cost some 10.3 billion U.S. dollars, would also see 8,000 of the 20,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Japan's southernmost prefecture relocated from Okinawa to the U.S. island of Guam.
Washington continues to unequivocally maintain that the existing accord remains the best solution to ensuring security in East Asia while reducing the burden on Okinawa.
Furthermore, should Hatoyama fail to resolve the issue by the end of May, a deadlock that has already strained ties between Washington and Tokyo and contributed to the support rate for his seven-month old Cabinet plunging ahead of key upper house elections this summer, he will risk further infuriating Washington as well as members of the ruling DPJ bloc.
Editor: Zhang Xiang
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