Roundup: U.S. base relocation spat headed for court as minister restores landfill permit

Japan's Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii decided to nullify Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga's revoking of a permit issued by his predecessor to allow landfill work in a coastal region of Okinawa.

It is part of the relocation of a controversial U.S. airbase within the island.

The ministry will inform both the regional defense bureau and the Okinawa government of its decision on Tuesday, according to sources close to the matter.

At the center of a growing spat between the central and local government of Okinawa is the former's pact made with the United States to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station from the densely populated region of Ginowan to the coastal Henoko region, also on Okinawa island.

Ishii's decision will allow the central government through its regional defense chapter to continue with its work to reclaim land from the sea in Henoko for the base's construction, but the Okinawa prefectural government, in anticipation of this, has said it is fully prepared to take the matter to court.

Onaga, who was elected as governor based on him being a staunch opponent to the relocation plans, has previously said his decision to revoke approval for the landfill work, initially green-lit by his predecessor then Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, was based on grounds that there were defects in the original permit granted for the reclamation work.

On Oct. 14, Onaga and other Okinawa's prefectural officials made it clear that they would look to further block the central government's land reclamation work, should their campaign with the land ministry fail, as it has, and will now be gearing up to take the case to the Central and Local Government Dispute Management Council, which falls under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, local sources confirmed Tuesday.

The defense ministry, for its part, has maintained that Onaga's attempts to block the relocation process could delay removing the risks associated with the Futenma air base, as well as adversely effect relations between Japan and the United States.

The ongoing impasse continues to rile Washington, as the central government here continues to try and appease its ally by giving its assurances that the relocation and construction of the new base will go ahead as per a previous bilateral agreement made between the two countries.

But ties with Tokyo could become further strained over the issue as the latest media polls show that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has failed to sufficiently explain and gain the support of Onaga and the people of Okinawa, of the central government's stance on the relocation, despite recent intensive talks held on the issue and local protests demanding more information.

Abe, whose public popularity initially plummeted following his forcing of unconstitutional war bills into law recently in a bid to expand the nation's military scope, has said the building of a new base partly on reclaimed land from the waters of Oura Bay in the coastal Henoko region of Okinawa, remains the only solution for the relocation of the Futenma base.

Tokyo's pledge to Washington's to relocate the base within the island, as was reconfirmed during a summit between Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama will, however, be a growing source of concern to the U.S. side, who has said that the base's relocation should ideally be predicated on the acceptance and understanding of the local people of Okinawa who continue to shoulder the burden of hosting the bulk of U.S. military facilities.

In addition to prefectural officials, the people of Okinawa wish to see the base relocated outside the prefecture and ideally out of Japan all together. Okinawan people have been increasingly vociferous of late in their opposition to their ongoing base hosting burdens and are calling for Abe's government to better understand the immeasurable suffering that was inflicted on them by the central government during and after WWII and the base-related strains they've had to endure since then.

The current impasse between the central and prefectural government's will, according to those close to the matter, likely rumble on for some time as now the central government will likely have to prove during hearings at the Central and Local Government Dispute Management Council that correct measures were mandated to protect the local environment of Nago's pristine Henoko coastal region.

Despite the outcome of the hearing, however, officials and locals in Okinawa are universally opposed to the U.S. base move, which alone is the biggest obstacle the central government is facing and has failed to comprehensively address or deal with in its plans to relocate the controversial base. Enditem