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LEAD: Japan, U.S. to meet next Tues. for realignment talks+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, March 29_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: CORRECTING LEVEL OF TALKS, ADDING COMMENTS, INFO) Japan and the United States will hold senior working-level talks for three days from next Tuesday in Washington in a bid to finalize a package to realign U.S. forces in Japan, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Wednesday. The meeting was rescheduled after the United States proposed postponing the one originally arranged for this week to meet the set deadline of Friday for a final agreement on the package. "We basically aim to reach a conclusion" at the talks next week, Aso said at a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee session. Tokyo intends to accelerate the bilateral talks to come to a conclusion as quickly as possible, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said in a press conference. The postponement has made it impossible for Japan and the United States to finalize by the end of March 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 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 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. Aso said the government is considering "various ideas" including Nago's proposal, with focus on the relocation's feasibility. Also under the package is a plan to relocate about 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, but the two countries remain apart over how much of the cost Japan should shoulder. Washington has requested Tokyo pay 75 percent of the $10 billion cost it estimates for the Marines' relocation, and Japan has sounded out the United States in response on the possibility of providing $2.5 billion in loans. At the lower house foreign affairs panel on Wednesday, Aso said the U.S.-proposed cost estimate is "an asked price, and I do not believe there is any particular ground" to come up with the figure. 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. |