Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has made it clear that he will not let the US Marine Corps` Futemma Air Station stay in the current site in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.
Noting that Japan and the United States came up with the relocation plan with the aim of taking the danger of the Futemma facility away from the city and helping local people feel safer, Hatoyama said: "I`m determined not to let (the facility) go back there".
He will pick a new relocation site by the end of May as he has promised, Hatoyama added at a meeting of the House of Councillors` Budget Committee yesterday.
The Futemma Air Station currently sits in a crowded residential area of Ginowan, and the two governments agreed in 2006 to relocate it to a less-crowded area in the city of Nago, another part of the southernmost prefecture, to ease the burden on local people who have faced risks of accidents and noise pollution.
Hatoyama reiterated later in the day that he will not let the US Marines continue to use the airfield as they have done and that the facility should basically be shut by 2014 in line with the 2006 bilateral accord.
Hatoyama, who leads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, declined in the Diet session to comment on whether he will take responsibility as a politician if he fails to find a relocation site by the end of May, saying there is no need to respond to a hypothetical question.
PTI
