Officials oppose relocating of Marine base

TOKYO, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's visit to Okinawa did little to soothe tensions over the relocation of a U.S. military base, officials said.

In a meeting between Naoto and Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, Naoto said it would be a "better" option, if not the best, for the prefecture to accept the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station to the Henoko coastal district in Nago, The Yomirui Shimbun reported.

At a news conference following Friday's meeting, Nakaima said any plan to relocate the base within the prefecture could "never be better, but only bad."

Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine also criticized the plan to relocate the Marine base.

"The Henoko district can never be a 'better' site, and my impressions is that he (Naoto) still fails to grasp the situation in our prefecture," Inamine said.

Officials want to move the Futenma base out of the densely populated area of Ginowan.

"I believe the government must address measures to lessen the perfecture's base-hosting burdens as one thing, and the task of helping the perfecture's economic development as another," Naoto said Saturday.