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Kohei Kobayashi Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH--Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama "won't simply extend" the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean when the law authorizing it expires in January, he said Friday evening in Pittsburgh.
Hatoyama suggested Japan could instead help the Afghanistan by providing humanitarian support such as agricultural and vocational training to Afghans.
The United States and other countries have urged the government to continue the mission helping antiterrorism activities in and around Afghanistan.
Speaking at a press conference after the Group of 20 financial summit meeting, Hatoyama said he would accelerate discussions with Washington over the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, including the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture.
"There's not a second to lose on this issue," Hatoyama said. "We'll make a decision based on discussions with the United States and give full consideration to the feelings of the people of Okinawa Prefecture."
The prime minister also remained confident he could fulfill his pledge to cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, saying, "It's not impossible if we tap Japan's state-of-the-art technology."
(Sep. 27, 2009)
By Charlie Reed, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, September 27, 2009
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A massive base housing renovation project will resume in January after a three-year delay due to contracting problems and come in more than $20 million under budget, according to Yokota base officials.
Yokota’s local contracting office recently took over the bid process for phases four and five of the seven-phase, $232.5 million project after the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment at Brooks City-Base in Texas was unable to hire a construction company within the $97 million budget, said Merry Green, 374th Contracting Squadron chief.
The Yokota office on Friday hired Tokyo-based Nishimatsu Construction to complete the work for $74.7 million. The project includes the renovation of 376 family housing units.
The bulk of the savings was a result of hiring a Japanese company directly, Green said. Contracts for overseas construction at U.S. bases executed stateside usually entail hiring a U.S. firm which then subcontracts the work out to a local company, charging a 20 percent management fee in the process, she said.
"We skipped the middle man," Green said.
The Air Force engineering agency also handed over contracting responsibilities to the Yokota office for the last two phases of the base renovation project as well as project oversight capabilities for the four remaining phases, she said.
Resolving issues related to the improper installation of inadequate air-conditioning systems at 260 units during earlier phases contributed to the contracting delays, Green said.
"We’re now able to have face-to-face interaction and immediate resolution of problems that might happen" during the construction process, she said.
Phase four, which begins in January, includes the refurbishment of 192 homes on the east, west and north sides of the base. Completion is set for spring 2012.
Phase five includes the refurbishment of 184 units on the east, west and north sides of the base. Construction is scheduled to begin 90 days after completion of the previous phase and is scheduled for completion by early 2015.
By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, September 27, 2009
New Japan defense minister gathers input on Okinawa
NAHA, Okinawa — Japan’s new defense minister — a longtime opponent of having a Marine air station on Okinawa — went to the island Friday intent to hear what residents and local officials think about a plan to build an air facility on rural Camp Schwab to replace another at urban Ginowan.
Toshimi Kitazawa is conducting a three-day fact-finding visit expected to focus primarily on the plan to close Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and move air operations to the island’s northeast coast.
“I am here this week to hear the honest voices of the people of Okinawa,” he said.
Closing MCAS Futenma is part of the 2006 bilateral plan to realign U.S. troops in Japan. Under the agreement, once the new base is finished MCAS Futenma and two other Marine bases on Okinawa would close and major Marine commands, including 8,000 Marines and their families, would be transferred to Guam by the end of 2014.
“We will discuss the Futenma issue with U.S. government, not as a separate issue but as a whole [realignment] package together with other issues, including the Self-Defense Force refueling operations in Indian Ocean,” Kitazawa said.
On Friday, he held talks with Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima and members of the prefectural assembly. On Saturday, he was scheduled to tour Camp Schwab and talk with Marine officials and later meet with the mayors of municipalities that host U.S. bases.
Kitazawa noted that the recent national elections that rejected the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power for most of the post-war era, showed Okinawans wanted change. All four LDP prefectural candidates were handily defeated by four opponents of the realignment plan.
Nakaima told Kitazawa that he, too, favored moving Futenma outside the prefecture and would accept any changes the new Democratic Pary of Japan government might make to the plan.
He said he had felt bound, however, by the 2006 agreement to move the air facility to Camp Schwab, mostly because it “comes as a package that included the closure of military bases south of Kadena and would contribute to removing the danger posed at the present location.”
But by accepting the move, Nakaima said his priority was to fight to ensure people in the area surrounding Camp Schwab were protected. He had called for the two runways planned for the base to be moved farther offshore.
Kitazawa is the third minister of the new government to publicly call for moving the Futenma base functions outside Okinawa.
Katsuya Okada, the new foreign affairs minister, put his position bluntly recently in comments to reporters in Tokyo, according to press accounts.
“Don’t make the new base,” he said.
In a meeting Sept. 18 with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, he argued that “all Okinawan election district candidates want Futenma Air Station to transfer outside of Okinawa.”
In New York on Friday, Okada expanded on his opposition to the base move and told reporters he would make a study of how the Camp Schwab plan was chosen after an earlier plan to build a sea-based airport two miles off shore in the Henoko district of Nago was abandoned.
“There should have been other options,” he said, according to NHK. “Moving the operations to Nago is time-consuming and costly … we need to examine the selection process.”
Lately, other Japanese officials have said that options weighed in 1996 after the two countries decided Futenma should be closed down should be reconsidered, especially the idea of moving the Marines to Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. air base in Asia.
Meanwhile, Kyodo News reported Friday that Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in Pittsburgh for the Group of 20 financial summit, said he had not changed his stance that the base should be moved outside Okinawa.
However, he told reporters he would not immediately press the issue with the U.S. Instead, he said he would focus bilateral talks on reconstruction support for Afghanistan and whether Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force should continue to refuel U.S. ships in the Indian Ocean.
Sep 26 01:14 AM US/Eastern
NAGO, Japan, Sept. 26 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Saturday inspected the coastal area of the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, where the Marines' Futemma Air Station in the same prefecture is scheduled to be transferred, and expressed his eagerness to set the new government's approach to the relocation issue "as soon as possible."
Kitazawa, visiting Okinawa since Friday, told reporters after meeting with Nago Mayor Yoshikazu Shimabukuro that he will urgently discuss how to deal with the Futemma transfer with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada to work out an approach.
Hatoyama, who will return to Japan later Saturday, reaffirmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday that he will not change his "basic idea" of seeking to move the air station out of the southwestern Japanese prefecture.
The proposal by the Japanese leader, who doubles as president of the Democratic Party of Japan, goes against a Japan-U.S. accord in 2006 to move heliport functions of the Futemma air station in downtown Ginowan in Okinawa to Camp Schwab by 2014.
In his meeting with the Nago mayor, Kitazawa expressed appreciation for Shimabukuro's efforts to meet the residents' needs and promote the local economy. The mayor said he basically accepts the relocation, but asked the minister that the V-shaped runways be built further offshore than planned.
Some local residents are calling for the runways to be constructed offshore, citing safety and noise concerns that could arise in the future.
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, Sept. 26 KYODO
September 26 2009 13:28
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may have just scored on his diplomatic debut, but now it's time for him to deliver.
In little more than a week since taking office, the chief of Japan's new ruling party won international acclaim for his ambitious pledge to reduce emissions target and his vows to grapple with nuclear threats, economic problems and a series of other challenges facing the world.
Hatoyama also promised to pursue better ties in a flurry of bilateral talks held on the sidelines of the U.N. conference in New York and the Group of 20 financial summit in Pittsburgh, which included talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and leaders of crucial Asian neighbors.
''It was my diplomatic debut in quite a new environment, but I feel like I got the job done,'' Hatoyama told a press conference Friday after the G-20 summit as he wrapped up his six-day visit to the United States. It was his first overseas trip since he was sworn in as prime minister on Sept. 16.
Yet he was short on details on contentious bilateral issues in those meetings, leaving his real diplomatic skills largely untested.
The 62-year-old Democratic Party of Japan president proposed the idea of forming an East Asian community when he held talks Monday in New York with Chinese President Hu Jintao. He also showed eagerness to find breakthroughs in the decades-old territorial dispute with Russia and the stalled joint gas field development project with China.
On these occasions, however, he did not put any concrete proposals on the table.
His frequent use of the word yu-ai, or fraternity, which constitutes the basis of his political philosophy, in a string of speeches and meetings could be seen as lacking in substance unless he can show that he can do more than talk.
So the world leaders are now closely watching what tangible steps he would take when they next meet with the soft-spoken lawmaker, the architect of the change of power that dethroned the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Aug. 30 general election.
The pressure on Hatoyama is already great with a busy diplomatic schedule lying ahead of him.
A summit meeting of the leaders from Japan, China and South Korea is being planned in two weeks time. And a trip to China will be followed by East Asian summit talks in Thailand in late October, Obama's visit to Japan and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum -- both in November.
One of Hatoyama's daunting tasks would be how he can convince the Obama administration of his party's policies on the future of Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and the proposed plan to review the bilateral accord on relocating U.S. forces stationed in Japan.
Concerning the refueling mission in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations, even if the DPJ moves to end it after the January deadline as it has suggested, analysts say it would not be taken as a serious problem by Washington as long as the new ruling party comes up with an alternative plan to help reconstruct Afghanistan.
During his tour of New York and Pittsburgh, Hatoyama mentioned a couple of times that his government is ready to offer humanitarian support to the people in the conflict-raged nation.
''I would like to carry out support steps that are most desired,'' Hatoyama said during the wrap-up press conference, in which he reiterated that he has no intention of simply extending the refueling mission launched by the staunchly pro-U.S. LDP government.
But a bumpier road awaits Japan over negotiations on reviewing the plan to relocate U.S. forces, given that both countries have sacrificed time and effort to craft the present agreement that was reached in 2006.
''I understand that not a minute can be wasted when we think about the sentiment in Okinawa,'' Hatoyama said Friday. ''I will find an answer within a certain time frame, taking into consideration the feelings of the people in the prefecture as well.''
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, who was also in the United States this past week, has acknowledged the difficulty of putting policy into practice.
''I understand it would not be that easy as we would have to say 'wait a minute' to something that is already in progress,'' the former DPJ head said in a TV program shortly before leaving for the United States.
Yet, in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Monday, he said the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan is one of the issues that he will focus on for the next 100 days.
Hatoyama has made clear that he has no intention of changing his ''basic idea'' on the issue, suggesting that he will still seek to move the heliport function of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station out of Okinawa Prefecture, against the 2006 bilateral accord on relocating it within the southern prefecture.
What could complicate the negotiation process is the policy on the issue of the Social Democratic Party, a coalition partner which is even more fiercely opposed to the relocation agreement.
The DPJ and its two coalition partners, which also include the People's New Party, have agreed to pursue a foreign policy that puts Tokyo on a close but more equal footing with Washington.
Political analysts say the DPJ does not intend to be too tough with the United States because the 11-year-old party hopes to maintain relations between the two countries as close allies, even if there is some policy change.
Looking back on the bright side of Hatoyama's fledgling diplomacy, he spoke to his counterparts in bilateral talks in his own words -- without documents prepared by bureaucrats -- in line with his party's election campaign pledge to reduce the power of bureaucrats.
His action signaled a change from LDP politics, which heavily depended on the bureaucracy, something the DPJ blames for the wasteful spending of taxpayers' money.
==Kyodo
Sep 25 11:57 PM US/Eastern
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, Sept. 25 (AP) - (Kyodo) — U.S. President Barack Obama indicated Friday that he envied Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama for having enjoyed the president's favorite Pittsburgh pancakes.
"I will tell you I'm a little resentful because I did not get to Pamela's Diner for pancakes," Obama said at a press conference concluding a world leaders' financial summit he hosted in this eastern U.S. city.
"Although Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan did get pancakes, and I don't know how he worked that, but he was raving about them," Obama said.
Speaking at a separate news conference, Hatoyama said he told Obama earlier in the day that he had had pancakes of Pamela's P&G Diner for breakfast. He quoted Obama as replying he wanted to have them together.
Obama is known to have fallen for the restaurant's pancakes after stopping over with his wife Michelle during the presidential election campaign last year. Michelle, now the first lady, went there and had pancakes for breakfast Friday morning.
A staffer at the Marriott Pittsburgh City Center hotel told Kyodo News that Pamela's is "very popular" and "one of the best places" to have breakfast in Pittsburgh.
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