Hatoyama says he may be 'foolish' for biting bullet on base issue+

TOKYO, April 21 Kyodo - Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama surprised many in parliament on Wednesday by saying that a Washington Post columnist who described him as ''loopy'' may be right because of his decision to review a base relocation accord with the United States, despite knowing how difficult it would be.

The rare comment came at the outset of a one-on-one debate in the Diet in the
afternoon with main opposition Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu
Tanigaki.
''As the Washington Post says, I may certainly be a foolish prime minister,''
Hatoyama said, suggesting that by seeking an alternative relocation site, he
has taken a path far tougher than just endorsing an existing plan for the
relocation of the U.S. Marines' Futemma Air Station in the city of Ginowan in
Okinawa Prefecture.
''If I'd settled on Henoko last December, I can't say how much easier things
would have been, but we weren't in a situation where we could work on
reclamation work,'' he said, referring to long-standing local opposition to the
planned reclamation for the base's relocation to the Henoko district of Nago,
also in Okinawa.
If the stalemate had continued for several years, said Hatoyama,
''Japanese-U.S. security arrangements would have been undermined and people
might have said, 'That conclusion (of sticking to the Henoko plan) was
wrong.'''
Stunned at Hatoyama's remarks, Tanigaki said, ''What's with this 'I may have
been foolish' business? I want you to have a sense of responsibility more.''
Through his candor, Hatoyama seems to have been attempting to get across his
view that reviewing the current relocation plan would serve to strengthen
bilateral ties in the long run and his strong resolve to take a tougher road.
But the comment appeared to betray the pressure Hatoyama is feeling with just
40 days left before his self-imposed deadline of May 31 for resolving the
matter.
In a column in the April 14 edition of the U.S. daily, Al Kamen wrote that ''by
far the biggest loser'' at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington earlier
this month was ''the hapless and (in the opinion of some Obama administration
officials) increasingly loopy'' Hatoyama.
The columnist said Hatoyama reportedly could not hold a bilateral meeting with
U.S. President Barack Obama, despite requesting one, on the sidelines of the
major event. The roughly 10-minute informal talks Hatoyama and Obama held
during a working dinner were ''the only consolation prize'' that the prime
minister was granted, Kamen said.
==Kyodo
2010-04-21 23:30:03