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Defense chief, Nago mayor again meet over U.S. base in Okinawa+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, March 25_(Kyodo) _ Defense Agency Director General Fukushiro Nukaga and Nago Mayor Yoshikazu Shimabukuro met Saturday in Tokyo seeking an agreement over a plan to relocate a U.S. air station from central Okinawa to the northern Okinawa city's coastline after their earlier meetings ended without a breakthrough. In their meetings Tuesday and Wednesday in Tokyo, both sides failed to fill the gaps over how far the new base would be from the coast of Nago. At issue is a Japan-U.S. plan, worked out last October, to build a 1,800-meter runway straddling the tip of a peninsula in Nago where the U.S. Marine Corps Camp Schwab is located in order to relocate the U.S. Marines' Futemma Air Station from downtown Ginowan. Nukaga and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have agreed to possibly make minor changes to the plan in response to local demands. The Nago city government wants the planned U.S. military runway moved at least 400 meters offshore due to the noise and concern for the safety of residents under the flight path. Local government sources in Okinawa said Friday that Taku Yamasaki, a close ally to Koizumi and an influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, proposed a compromise to Okinawa Prefecture in mid-March involving moving it 200 meters out to sea. Japan and the United States agreed last October on the new relocation plan for Futemma as part of an interim report on the overall realignment package on the U.S. military presence in Japan. Tokyo and Washington agreed to the plan last October. It consists of building an L-shaped airfield straddling the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab and coastal waters at the tip of Nago's Cape Henoko to facilitate relocating the Futemma base from downtown Ginowan. Under the October accord, Japan and the United States are working to finalize the package by the end of this month, but Tokyo has made little headway in gaining local consensus. |