Gov't eyes 70 bil. yen to house U.S. troops to be moved to Iwakuni+

YAMAGUCHI, Japan, Sept. 19 Kyodo -
The Defense Ministry expects it will cost 70 billion yen to build houses in
Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, for U.S. military personnel who will move from
Kanagawa Prefecture with carrier-borne aircraft under a bilateral plan to
realign U.S. forces in Japan, a local assembly member said Sunday.
Some 1,060 houses would be newly built for some 4,000 people, including family
members, who would move along with the planned transfer of 59 jet fighters from
the U.S. Navy's Atsugi base in Kanagawa by 2014 under the 2006 realignment
accord, according to what the ministry has explained to local leaders.
The ministry is hoping to win local consent to buy land for the housing project
during the current fiscal year through March, before working out details with
the U.S. side, according to the member of the Yamaguchi prefectural assembly
who has been briefed of the idea.
Some 270 of the 1,060 houses would be built on land earmarked for a public
project, later aborted, to build residential areas on land freed up after soil
was taken from a mountain to move Iwakuni's airstrip offshore. The aborted
public housing project left the prefectural and city governments with debts
totaling some 24 billion yen.
Given the government's troubles over the realignment issue, which forced former
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to resign in June, and citizen opposition to
accommodating U.S. military personnel on land for residential housing,
Yamaguchi Gov. Sekinari Nii has dropped his readiness to sell the land to the
central government and has adopted a cautious stance.
As for the related plan to relocate the Marines' Futenma Air Station within
Okinawa Prefecture, new Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said the national
government will ''need to take time'' trying to win local understanding.
Referring to U.S. President Barack Obama's expected visit to Japan in November
to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Maehara said in an NHK
talk show, ''We are not basing our ideas on promoting things in time for
President Obama's Japan visit.''
''I haven't heard anything related to holding a meeting of the Japan-U.S.
Security Consultative Committee in the fall,'' he told reporters after the live
program in Tokyo regarding a decision-making panel among foreign and defense
ministers of the two countries.
Tokyo has decided to put off the meeting from this month until after the Nov.
28 Okinawa gubernatorial election.
==Kyodo
2010-09-19 22:18:15


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