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Futenma relocation floundering as sides can’t agree on runwaysDate Posted: 2008-05-16 Six months after a major conference on the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station relocation took place at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, absolutely nothing has happened. And that conference, the fourth between the central government and Okinawa leaders, came ten long months after the third. The agreement inked several years ago called for construction of the new airfield at Camp Schwab, near Nago City, with the twin V-shape runways extending out into Oura Bay. Okinawa Prefecture wants to modify the plan, moving the runways 80 meters further offshore, a proposal that has drawn a flurry of negative responses from the U.S. and Japan’s central government. The Prefecture contends America won’t listen to the Okinawan opinion, and the Japanese position has been largely one of trying to get the U.S. and Okinawa to listen to each other. “Yes, it’s possible to move the runway out a bit farther off shore,” says Nobutaka Machimura, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, “but not much.” The American side isn’t budging from the original plans, leading the American Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, to tell Machida “don’t say it’s an easy way to an Okinawan. Don’t give the answer that we can move the runway farther offshore. The American military will get complaints.” |
   
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