Gov`t not to reject current plan despite Okinawa election results

TOKYO, Jan. 25 Kyodo -
Japan will not reject the existing plan to relocate a U.S. Marine base in
Okinawa despite the victory in a mayoral election of a challenger opposed to
hosting the base in his island city, Cabinet ministers suggested Monday.
The move by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan-led
government drew a sharp reaction from one of the ruling party's two coalition
partners, the Social Democratic Party, which calls for moving the base outside
of the prefecture or abroad.
Susumu Inamine, 64, an opponent of relocating the Marines' Futemma Air Station
in Ginowan to his less densely populated city of Nago, beat the incumbent
mayor, who had expressed his willingness to accept the relocation plan.
On Monday, Hatoyama called Inamine's victory a ''manifestation of the popular
will,'' but said all options are still open with regard to where the base
should be relocated.
''We have said the state will responsibly reach a conclusion on this issue by
the end of May'' by conducting a ''zero-base'' review of every possibility, he
told reporters.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano put it more bluntly.
''There is no reason why we have to take that (the election result) into
account,'' he said.
A government committee studying the relocation issue will not exclude the
current plan, Hirano said, adding that the panel will search for ''the best
place'' from a clean slate.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada warned during a TV program that unless the panel
can come up with a good alternative, the government could be forced to stick to
the existing plan, ''or worse, it (the base) would be fixed under the present
conditions.''
The panel is exploring an alternative to the existing plan to move Futemma's
flight operations to a new facility to be built at the Marines' Camp Schwab in
Nago without excluding the plan. The base will be returned to Japan once the
relocation is realized.
There is a view within the Japanese government that reaching a decision on this
issue in time will be difficult. This has apparently prompted Tokyo to keep the
existing plan alive despite Sunday's election results.
But the SDP's Fukushima reminded reporters on Monday that an opponent of the
existing relocation plan has won the mayoral election. ''The popular will is a
serious thing,'' she said, adding that this fact should be reflected in the
relocation debate.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said the government must take the
election results ''extremely seriously.'' He told reporters the election
reflected rising expectations among local residents that the base would be
moved out of the prefecture or abroad.
But he also said, ''It is not good that there is a trend of putting a lot of
pressure on locals to make a choice on an issue that must be resolved by the
central government.''
He also indicated the Defense Ministry does not plan to halt environmental
assessment procedures for the existing plan.
During the campaign for the House of Representatives election last August,
Hatoyama advocated moving the Futemma facility out of Okinawa or out of Japan
altogether.
Hatoyama took office and launched a coalition government with the SDP and
another small party last September after trouncing in the long-ruling Liberal
Democratic Party, under which the Futemma relocation plan was worked out.
The relocation is part of a broader agreement on the reconfiguration of U.S.
forces in Japan forged between Japan and the United States in 2006, and is
linked to the transfer of about 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 2014.
==Kyodo