Hatoyama not to let Futemma stay, will pick new site by end of May

TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama made it clear Thursday he will not let the U.S.
Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station stay in the current site in Ginowan, Okinawa
Prefecture, and will pick a new relocation site by the end of May as he has
promised.
Noting that Japan and the United States came up with the relocation plan with
the aim of taking the danger of the Futemma facility away from the city and
helping local people feel safer, Hatoyama said at a meeting of the House of
Councillors' Budget Committee, ''I'm determined not to let (the facility) go
back there.''
The Futemma Air Station currently sits in a crowded residential area of
Ginowan, and the two governments agreed in 2006 to relocate it to a
less-crowded area in the city of Nago, another part of the southernmost
prefecture, to ease the burden on local people who have faced risks of
accidents and noise pollution.
Speaking to reporters, Hatoyama reiterated later in the day that he will not
let the U.S. Marines continue to use the airfield as they have done and that
the facility should basically be shut by 2014 in line with the 2006 bilateral
accord.
Hatoyama, who leads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, declined in the Diet
session to comment on whether he will take responsibility as a politician if he
fails to find a relocation site by the end of May, saying there is no need to
respond to a hypothetical question.
In the committee session, meanwhile, Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social
Democratic Party, one of the DPJ's two coalition partners, stressed that her
party will make maximum efforts in the Cabinet not to let a U.S. base be built
in the Henoko area in the city of Nago.
But the government is currently examining the relocation issue without
eliminating the original plan.
==Kyodo