Japan’s prime minister says moving all of key US Marine base off Okinawa ‘impossible’

Japan PM: Moving US base off Okinawa ‘impossible’

TOKYO — Japan’s prime minister said Tuesday that it will be impossible to move all parts of a key U.S. Marine base out of Okinawa, breaking with past promises to relocate the facility outside the southern island.

It was the first time since Yukio Hatoyama became prime minister in September that he officially acknowledged that at least part of Futenma U.S. Marine Corps airfield would remain in Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 American troops based in Japan under a security pact.

Hatoyama had frozen a 2006 agreement with the U.S. on moving Futenma to a less crowded part of the island, saying instead he wanted to move it off Okinawa entirely — straining ties with Washington.

“Realistically speaking, it is impossible. We’re facing a situation that is realistically difficult to move everything out of the prefecture,” he said Tuesday on his first trip to Okinawa as prime minister.

Hatoyama asked residents to be open to a government plan that would keep some of Futenma’s functions on the island, while possibly moving other functions outside the island.

“We must ask the people of Okinawa to share the burden,” he said.

Hatoyama’s comments, which come just weeks before his self-declared end-of-May deadline for reaching a decision on the issue, essentially signals that he is shifting back toward the 2006 agreement, forged between Washington and the previous conservative Tokyo government.

Yet he faces strong local opposition to keeping Futenma on the island. Late last month, about 90,000 people gathered in the town of Yomitan to protest the proposed move. Earlier this year, an anti-base candidate was elected mayor of the northern town of Nago, the proposed site for the airfield’s move.

Hatoyama was expected to present to Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima and other local officials a government plan that roughly follows the 2006 deal to move Futenma to a location near Camp Schwab on the island’s northeastern coast.

The government is also considering moving some of Futenma’s functions to Tokunoshima island, north of Okinawa, but residents held a massive protest this month and local officials rejected Tokyo’s request for talks.

Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Jay Alabaster contributed to this report.