Gov't mulls mechanism for better contact with Okinawa on Futemma issue+

TOKYO, Jan. 13 Kyodo - The government is considering a mechanism to deepen contacts with local governments in Okinawa as it mulls the question of where to relocate the U.S. Marines' Futemma Air Station in the southernmost prefecture, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said Wednesday.

A senior lawmaker in the government said Tuesday that the government plans to
set up a branch office of the prime minister's office in the prefectural
capital of Naha for the same purpose.
''We will think about a mechanism in which the pipeline (between the central
and local governments) would be thicker and more information be channeled to
the prime minister's office,'' Hirano said at a morning news conference on
Wednesday.
Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima asked Hirano during the top government
spokesman's trip to the southern island last weekend to consider ways the
prefecture can better communicate with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's office
on the Futemma issue.
''I want to develop how we can best coordinate with the municipalities in
Okinawa as a basis'' for considering the mechanism, Hirano said.
If a branch office was to be set up, Cabinet Secretariat officials would be
posted at the branch office.
The government is weighing where to move the Marine base's flight operations
with a promise to reach a conclusion no later than May. Hirano chairs a
government panel tasked with considering the issue, including the possibility
of an alternative relocation site.
The United States has urged Japan to implement an original plan to move them to
an airfield to be built in a less populated part of Okinawa as agreed on in a
2006 deal.
The Social Democratic Party, one of the two junior coalition partners in
Hatoyama's four-month-old government, has called for moving the operations
outside of the prefecture to reduce the burden on the people of Okinawa, which
hosts the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan.
==Kyodo