FOCUS: Futenma relocation remains farfetched as Japan, U.S. nix 2014 deadline+

WASHINGTON, June 21 Kyodo -
Security talks Tuesday between Japan and the U.S. yielded little hope of breaking the impasse on relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station, after the parties abandoned a 2014 target for moving the base without providing a new timeline or other details.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto met with their U.S. counterparts during the two-plus-two talks in Washington only to commit to ''implement steadily'' a bilateral accord struck in May last year to relocate the Futenma base from Ginowan to a less-populated area within the prefecture.
Local communities in Okinawa, long burdened by hosting the bulk of U.S. forces stationed in Japan, have been clamoring for the base to be moved outside the southwestern island prefecture.
''The latest two-plus-two talks are basically reaffirming what has already been agreed with some adjustments...there has hardly been any progress on Futenma during the current administration over the past year,'' Masaaki Gabe, professor at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, said.
Ahead of the two-plus-two meeting, Kitazawa visited Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima last week to formally convey that Japan and the United States were sticking to the current plan. Nakaima told reporters afterward that the central government is ''sticking too much'' to the plan.
Despite Okinawa's refusal for compromise, Kitazawa said in a joint news conference following the two-plus-two meeting that Japan, for its part, would make ''utmost efforts to gain the understanding of Gov. Nakaima and local people.''
But Gabe questioned if this was at all possible given the mistrust among people in Okinawa toward the ruling Democratic Party of Japan-led government after former DPJ head and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reneged on his promise last year to move the base ''at least'' outside the prefecture. The fiasco over Futenma eventually forced Hatoyama to resign from his post.
Hatoyama's successor, current premier Naoto Kan, has done no better, with negotiations over the Futenma relocation issue having stalled since the DPJ came to power in 2009.
Gabe, a defense expert, said he does not see Japan taking any initiative to move the Futenma issue forward.
''The Japanese government will simply take the cue from the United States and act based on how things are unfolding in Washington,'' he said.
In an interesting development, critics of the current Futenma plan have emerged from within the U.S. Congress. Last month, three influential U.S. lawmakers -- Carl Levin, Jim Webb, and John McCain -- jointly proposed integrating the Futenma base into the existing U.S. Kadena Air Force Base, also in Okinawa, calling the agreed plan ''unrealistic.''
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that while the U.S. government upholds the plan, he acknowledged that the senators' move is a ''manifestation of growing congressional impatience with the lack of progress.''
A U.S. Senate panel last week urged the Pentagon to make a breakthrough on the relocation or else it would not approve funding for the associated transfer of 8,000 troops to Guam, which is part of the realignment package.
Although the two-plus-two joint statement did not refer to the planned deployment of MV-22 Osprey vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to the Futenma base, the ministers discussed it at their meeting, with Japan asking the United States to provide up-to-date data to allay its concerns about the safety of the aircraft, a Japanese official said.
Already with its hands full with the Futenma row, the central government is expected to face more protests from locals elsewhere as it mentioned that the Mage Island in Kagoshima Prefecture is ''considered to be the candidate'' for a Self-Defense Force facility and conducting U.S. carrier-borne aircraft landing drills.
Still, both Japan and the United States know too well that a strong bilateral alliance is crucial amid what their statement referred to as challenges of an ''increasingly uncertain security environment'' which includes North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and growing military capabilities and activities in the region, apparently alluding to China's military might.
''As the U.S.-Japan alliance enters its second half century, it remains indispensable to the peace, security and economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region,'' according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, said the Futenma row cannot define the entire relationship between Japan and the United States, which should maintain good bilateral ties in the bigger regional context.
''Nothing is more important in terms of managing China's rise than a strong U.S.-Japan relationship,'' Cha said.
==Kyodo
2011-06-22 23:19:28