Uncertainties remain about meeting base transfer deadline: Kitazawa

+

TOKYO, Dec. 17 Kyodo -
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Thursday that uncertainties remain about
meeting the 2014 deadline for relocating a U.S. military base in Okinawa,
casting a cloud over the prospect of doing so offered by Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama.
''There are still some uncertain factors that make it difficult to say
definitively (about meeting the deadline) if we are going to think about an
alternative plan,'' the defense chief told reporters.
Kitazawa's remarks came a day after Hatoyama said Japan can still meet the
deadline for relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station despite the
government putting off a decision on the issue and deciding to seek an
alternative site to the one previously agreed on.
''We don't know what that alternative plan will be, and will have to conduct
another environmental impact evaluation (at an alternative site), and if so, we
will have to coordinate things with local communities,'' Kitazawa said,
speculating that Hatoyama merely expressed a target for his efforts by offering
the prospect of meeting the relocation deadline.
Under the road map on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, a Japanese-U.S.
agreement in 2006, the Futemma base will be replaced by a new airfield to be
built on the shores of the Marines' Camp Schwab, while about 8,000 Marines will
be moved from Okinawa to Guam.
The road map targets the completion of the new facility's construction and the
Marines' Guam transfer by 2014, but says the latter depends partly on
''tangible progress'' on the new facility construction.
On Thursday, a top-class Defense Ministry official indicated that his ministry
will not be able to compile an environmental assessment for the existing
relocation plan by the end of the year -- a step that must be taken soon,
possibly early next year, to complete Futemma's relocation to the Marine camp
by 2014.
Meanwhile, Hatoyama acknowledged difficulties resolving the relocation issue in
an e-mail newsletter posted on his office's website on Thursday, saying it is
''as difficult as threading a needle'' but he has not given up.
Mentioning three factors -- the 2006 agreement, his party's victory in a
general election by advocating the base's relocation outside the prefecture or
abroad, and the need to respect the views of his party's two junior partners to
keep the coalition government -- he wrote, ''I must find an answer that meets
these three conditions.''
Hatoyama also called for U.S. understanding about Japan's decision to put off
deciding on the relocation, saying that pushing too hard on the existing plan
now would make completing the Futemma relocation farther away.
''That must be undesirable for the United States, too,'' he wrote.
As Hatoyama's new government reviews the Futemma relocation plan, which was put
together under the previous government, Washington has expressed concern that
any delay in implementing the existing plan would affect the entire road map.
Hatoyama said this week that he will seek a new relocation site for the Futemma
base and that he would need several months to reach a conclusion on the issue.
The Futemma issue has emerged as a major sticking point between Japan and the
United States since Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan launched a coalition
government in September with a pledge to reexamine the realignment plan of U.S.
forces in Japan.
Expectations are growing among people in Okinawa that the government will seek
to relocate the facility outside the prefecture in line with the DPJ's stance
prior to the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election.
The southern island hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan.
==Kyodo