Koizumi vows to speed up relocation of US Army's live-fire drills in Okinawa

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday his government will try to speed up the planned relocation of the US Army's live-fire drills within a camp in south Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.

"I think we will have to expedite the relocation," Koizumi told reporters referring to the local protest against the drills conducted some 300 meters from residential areas, posing a danger to local communities.

Koizumi made the remarks after Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda vowed in a meeting with Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine to do his best to minimize the impact of the drills that began earlier this month, but stopped short of committing to halt them.

Japanese Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori Ono, meanwhile, again refused to ask the US military to stop the drills, although he also pledged to ensure the safety of local residents, Inamine told reporters.

Inamine said after meeting with Hosoda and Ono that the local government is discontent with the lack of state commitment to halt the dangerous drills.

But he also said the local delegation felt that the central government has begun to understand the problem as its response differed from last week when he said it flatly rejected the same request filed by local assembly members.

The Japanese government will do its best in negotiating with the United States to expedite the relocation of the training site and to downscale the drills to lower risks to the local communities, according to Hosoda.

Local protests have intensified as the US Army Special Operations Forces, commonly known as the Green Berets, started live-fire training on July 12 at a new urban-warfare firing range located only about 300 meters from residential areas.

The range was built in the Marine Corps Camp Hansen in the Okinawa prefectural town of Kin.

The Japanese government said in April that it had agreed with the United States to relocate the range at its cost to an area within the camp some 1 kilometer from residential areas, but allowed the current range to be used until the relocation is completed.

Source: Xinhua