Hatoyama failed to lay out strategies to move Futenma outside Okinawa

TOKYO, Feb. 13 Kyodo - Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama acknowledged in a recent series of interviews with Kyodo News that he did not have concrete strategies to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station outside Okinawa Prefecture as he had initially pledged.
He also said he did not expect the issue to become serious enough to force him to resign.
Hatoyama, who stepped down as prime minister last June, said it was ''an expedient'' to justify his giving up of the pledge that he had emphasized the need to maintain the deterrence of U.S. Marines so they should stay in the island prefecture.
''I used the word 'deterrence' because I needed to provide the reason'' for the move of the Futenma base, currently in the city of Ginowan, to the Henoko area in Nago, also in Okinawa, Hatoyama said.
He offered an apology to the people in Okinawa as he could not pave the way for transferring the Futenma base outside the prefecture.
Elsewhere, the former prime minister criticized both the foreign and defense ministries, saying they have taken it for granted that the U.S. military bases are relocated within Okinawa.
''They must have shrugged off my idea about the relocation (of Futenma outside the prefecture) as they believed it would be impossible,'' he said.
In order to break the impasse over the relocation issue, he said he had contemplated visiting the United States during Japan's Golden Week holiday season from late April to early May last year to hold direct talks with U.S. President Barack Obama.