US agrees to Okinawa air-base move

The United States accepted a Japanese proposal for the relocation of a US air base on Okinawa today, resolving a dispute that had blocked progress on military realignment talks and caused friction between the two allies.

The plan, which scuttles a US-favoured proposal to construct a heliport on a coral reef, will move the functions of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a congested city to inside another American base on the island, Japan’s foreign minister said.

“The plan we have accepted today … provides a comprehensive, capable and executable solution for the replacement of Futenma in an expeditious and complete manner,” US Deputy Under-secretary of Defence Richard Lawless said at the American Embassy.

Japanese officials hailed the agreement, saying that it resolved what had been turning into a tense stand-off over the relocation of the base. The plan to build a new heliport on reclaimed land had faced stiff opposition from environmentalists.

“There was a sense of emergency that not reaching agreement on the security issue, a central part of the US-Japan relationship, would seriously damage relations,” Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

Today’s deal lifted the main stumbling block to an agreement on the realignment of the 50,000 US troops based in Japan. An interim agreement on realignment is to be released in Washington during US-Japan talks on Saturday.

Washington and Tokyo agreed nearly 10 years ago to move the Futenma air base to a less-crowded location on Okinawa as part of an overall plan to reduce the burden of the US military presence on the tiny island.

Okinawa hosts most of the US troops in Japan, and residents have long complained of crime, crowding and noise associated with the bases. Protests against the presence peaked in 1995 following the rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl by three US servicemen.

Research had already begun on a proposed heliport to be build at Henoko off the coast of Okinawa. But environmentalists, residents and other opponents say the plan would wreck one of the area’s last healthy coral reefs, and have mounted regular protests to block the research.

In the face of that opposition, Japan had come up with a proposal to combine the air station’s functions with nearby Camp Schwab. Washington initially balked at that plan, in part because the US believed it too would be fought by residents.

It was not clear why the US changed position, and Lawless gave no details of the plan that Washington had accepted.

Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, reported that the plan would allow Schwab’s facilities to be extended into the sea with landfill if more space was needed to accommodate the heliport functions now performed at Futenma.

Washington had expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress. Lawless yesterday suggested that an agreement had been held up by Japanese concern with “parochial issues” – a reference to local opposition to the plan to build an offshore air station.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said earlier today that Lawless and US Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns, in Tokyo for meetings on security and other issues, had extended their stays for several hours today to hold further talks on the realignment dispute.