Obama hinted at Futenma deal: sources

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) President Barack Obama hinted when he met Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama last Friday in Tokyo that he might agree to a request to have a planned U.S. Marine Corps replacement airstrip built a bit farther away from a populated area, sources said.

Obama said the 2006 agreement to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma should be completed, but it might be possible to respond favorably to a request by the Okinawa Prefectural Government to move the two-runway airstrip to be built in Nago, northern Okinawa Island, some 50 meters farther out on the cape they are expected to straddle.

The remarks were not made public at the joint news conference or in media briefings after the meeting.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed similar flexibility when he visited Japan last month.

In response to Obama's remarks, Hatoyama said in the meeting that he would seek a quick resolution through a ministerial task force on the relocation issue, according to the sources.

Hatoyama also explained the difficulty of the relocation issue, saying his Democratic Party of Japan pledged during the general election in August to relocate the Futenma base out of Okinawa, or even abroad.

At a news conference Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said the government had no comment on the matter.

"The two leaders said everything there was to say about their talks at their joint news conference," Hirano said.