Japan Defense Minister Retracts U.S. Bases Remark
Filed at 4:31 a.m. ET
By Reuters
TOKYO (Reuters) - A top aide to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori stepped in to chide the new defense minister on Thursday for saying something that many officials believe but are not supposed to say.
Defense Agency chief Kazuo Torashima had told reporters on Wednesday that it would be impossible to limit U.S. military use of a heliport on the southern island of Okinawa to 15 years -- a limit that Okinawans insist on in their campaign to end more than five decades of U.S. military presence.
Echoing a point Washington has stated in private, Torashima -- in his first comments to reporters since taking office a day earlier -- said it was difficult to forecast the region's security situation so far in advance.
Worried that the remarks would upset Okinawans ahead of the July 21-23 summit of the Group of Eight rich nations and Russia, Hidenao Nakagawa, the top government spokesman and Mori's right-hand man, called the defense agency chief and told him to correct his controversial remark.
``It was not what I meant to say. I will withdraw it,'' the daily Tokyo Shimbun quoted Torashima as saying in a hurriedly called midnight news conference.
The hasty climbdown by Torashima comes amid rising tension on the southern Japanese subtropical island after a U.S. marine was arrested this week for allegedly molesting a high school girl.
``I told him (Torashima) to hold another news conference and make a statement in accordance with a cabinet decision,'' top government spokesman Nakagawa said at a Thursday briefing.
The flap was also a fresh embarrassment for the unpopular Mori, already under criticism for launching what critics dubbed a stop-gap cabinet without clear policy goals.
TIME LIMIT UP IN AIR
The Japanese government formally decided last December to ''take seriously'' the opinions of the Okinawans in its negotiations with the United States on the bases.
But analysts say Japanese government officials are aware that Tokyo would not be able to persuade Washington to accept the 15-year time frame.
Okinawa had agreed to relocate a heliport from the massive Futenma air station in central Okinawa to its northern Nago City, where the Group of Eight summit is to be held from July 21-23.
Nevertheless the Okinawa prefectural government and Nago City authorities have insisted U.S. military use of the facility be limited to 15 years and, in a December 1997 referendum, Nago residents opposed the relocation. Washington has suggested that 15 years is an unacceptably short time scale.
The central Japanese government subsequently put pressure on the city mayor to allow its construction, including the promise of economic assistance to Okinawa, the poorest region in Japan.
In 1996, Clinton and then-prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto reached an agreement aimed at defusing local resentment, including a deal to move helicopter facilities at the U.S. Marine base in Futenma to Nago City.
But Okinawa's demand that U.S. military use of the facility be limited to 15 years has been rejected by Washington and remains a sticking point to implementing the deal.
U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE A ROOT COURSE OF FUROR
Okinawa has less than one percent of Japan's total land mass but is home to 26,000 of the 48,000 U.S. military in the country, sparking local resentment that flared after the 1995 rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen.
In the latest incident, a drunken 19-year-old U.S. marine stationed at Futenma was arrested on suspicion of entering the home of a 14-year-old high schoolgirl and molesting her while she slept.
That prompted Okinawa's local assembly to pass a resolution on Wednesday demanding the Japanese and U.S. governments take steps to prevent such incidents and take strict disciplinary action against U.S. soldiers accused of such crimes.
Anti-base activists have said they will organize a human chain around one of the largest bases, Kadena, on July 20 -- the day before the summit opens. It will take 25,000 people to span the base's 17.5 km (10.5 mile) perimeter.
The flare-up of anti-U.S. sentiment among the local residents of Okinawa would be an embarrassment both for Mori and President Clinton who are to meet on the island.
Analysts say Mori's new cabinet named on Tuesday is expected to last only until the end of the year when a sweeping government reorganization will slash the number of ministries to 12 from 22.