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BBC MUNDO RADIO
TOKYO, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Monday that the importance of Japan's alliance with the United States was central to his government's decision to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps base within Okinawa Prefecture, despite his previous promises to the contrary.
''I decided that it is of utmost importance that we place the Japan-U.S. relationship on a solid relationship of mutual trust, considering the current situation in the Korean Peninsula and in Asia,'' Hatoyama told reporters a day after visiting Okinawa Prefecture.
Hatoyama on Sunday officially announced his government's plans to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station to an area near the coastal Henoko district in Nago, in line with an existing accord reached between Tokyo and Washington in 2006.
Apologizing to local citizens for failing to make good on his promise to move the U.S. base off the island, Hatoyama told Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima he had concluded the Futemma base should be moved to the Henoko area of the island -- largely in line with the original deal.
Nakaima for his part maintained it would be difficult to accept the plan, particularly as Hatoyama had raised hopes that the islanders would soon be rid of the Futemma facility.
Also on Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano urged officials and residents of Okinawa to trust that the central government has their best interests at heart and that all the trouble leading up to the decision was "worthwhile" and the government just needed a little more time to explain its rationale to the people of Okinawa and how the decision could actually benefit them.
''Please wait a little bit as we are making final adjustments with the United States", Hirano said at a news conference.
"There will be criticism of course. But if the actual burden is reduced, we will have achieved something for the Okinawan people," Hirano said, adding that, "If people understand this was done for the sake of Japan's security ... this will be seen as progress."
The latest plan, which Washington has been consistently pushing for, most recently during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday, is in line with the existing 2006 relocation plan aimed at transferring the Futemma functions to land to be reclaimed near the coast of the Nago district, while relocating around 8,000 Marines to Guam from Okinawa, both by 2014.
On May 28 both countries are expected to announce their agreement to the plan, despite ongoing dissent from one of the Democratic Party of Japan's junior coalition members and the bitter disappointment and opposition to the idea from the people of Okinawa.
