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3RD LD: Aso aims to keep share of Marines removal cost below 50%+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, March 29_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDNG ABE'S COMMENTS) Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday he wants to keep Tokyo's share of the expenses for relocating U.S. Marines to Guam from Okinawa Prefecture to below 50 percent of the total cost. Speaking at a meeting of a House of Representatives panel, Aso said, "I, for one, would like to see it cut down to at least below 50 (percent)." The United States has proposed that Japan shoulder 75 percent of the $10 billion cost it estimates is needed for the relocation as part of its global military realignment. Aso told the lower house's Special Committee on Okinawa and Northern Problems, "There's no way of yielding to as much as 50 (percent) but I don't know where we will end up after talks." But Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe later told a press conference the Japanese government has not made any decision on such a target as 50 percent. The remarks were made as Japan and the United States rescheduled their senior working-level talks aimed at finalizing the entire realignment package on U.S. forces in Japan, postponing a meeting originally set for this week to meet the initially agreed deadline of the end of March. At the three-day meeting to start Tuesday in Washington, the two sides are set to discuss the plan to relocate about 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The two countries differ over how much of the cost Japan should shoulder. Aso said in a meeting of the lower house Foreign Affairs Committee earlier Wednesday that the U.S.-proposed cost estimate for the Marines relocation is "an asked price." "I do not believe there is any particular ground" for coming up with that figure, the Japanese foreign minister told parliament. Aso, however, expressed hope of reaching an outcome in the talks next week, saying, "We basically aim to reach a conclusion (then)." Tokyo intends to accelerate the talks to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible, Abe, its top spokesman, also said, without clarifying when. The postponement has made it impossible for Japan and the United States to finalize by Friday a set of realignment plans which the two countries outlined in an interim report released last October. The package is intended to reduce the burden on base-hosting communities in Japan while maintaining the U.S. deterrence as part of Washington's global transformation of its military into a more flexible and mobile force. But the plans have faced strong opposition by the local communities, especially in Okinawa Prefecture, which hosts most of the U.S. military forces in Japan. At issue in particular is a Japan-U.S. plan to build a 1,800-meter runway straddling the U.S. Marines' Camp Schwab at Cape Henoko and its coastline in Nago to relocate the Marines' Futemma Air Station within Okinawa. The Nago city government wants the new airfield to be moved by at least 400 meters out to sea due to noise and concerns for the safety of residents that may have to live under the flight path envisaged in the current plan. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated that the government will strive to win local understanding of the Futemma relocation plan under a stance that minor adjustments are possible if they do not alter the specifics in the October report. "We are not thinking about revision, but we are not saying we will not alter the plan even by a centimeter," Koizumi told reporters at his official residence. The two countries have also yet to agree on where to relocate KC-130 air tankers from Futemma. They agreed last October to give "priority consideration" to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Kanoya Base in Kagoshima Prefecture, but the United States later requested the planes be moved to the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture. |