Gov't showed Okinawa concessions last year on U.S. base issue

Apr 25 08:41 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, April 25 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government tried last year to reach an early settlement by indicating concessions to local requests on where to build a runway at a proposed U.S. military airfield in Japan's southernmost prefecture, a former chief government spokesman said Saturday.

Nobutaka Machimura told Kyodo News that last year's resignation by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, for whom he served as chief cabinet secretary, had dashed Tokyo's hopes of settling the relocation issue while George W. Bush was in office as U.S. president.

"We had handled the issue with the intention of building a consensus with Okinawa, but Fukuda's sudden departure (last September) made it impossible to proceed with the plan," said Machimura, who held his post in the Fukuda administration for a year from September 2007.

Machimura made the remarks after his successor, Takeo Kawamura, said on April 8 that the administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso will "handle the matter sincerely" if opinions are given by the Okinawa governor.

Kawamura's comment is seen as the most positive to date by a senior central government official regarding the possibility of building the runway further offshore in the coastal area of Nago than the location agreed on by Japan and the United States.

The Okinawa prefectural government has asked that the runway be located further offshore, citing local residents' concerns about problems of safety and noise that could arise after the facilities open.

Machimura said in his interview with Kyodo that he told Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima while in office that the government (of Fukuda) would not stick to what he called the impractical idea of "not moving the facilities by 1 centimeter."

He also said he noted in the same meeting with Nakaima that the Foreign Ministry "can negotiate with the United States if there is no need to conduct additional environmental assessments and a new proposal is within the scope of Japan's sovereignty and discretion."

Under a 2006 Japan-U.S. agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, the airfield functions of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Ginowan is supposed to be relocated to the proposed airfield by 2014.