Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga said Wednesday he felt "strong resentment" toward the reaffirmation by Japanese and U.S. leaders of their plan to relocate a U.S. military base within the island prefecture.
Onaga, who was elected last year on an antibase relocation platform, told a news conference in Naha, the prefectural capital, that he intended to visit the United States as early as late May to directly convey to the U.S. government his opposition to the base relocation.
Japan and the United States have agreed to move the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station from a residential area in Ginowan to the less populated Henoko district of Nago. Preparations have begun for reclaiming land off Henoko despite protests from locals and others opposed to the relocation project.
The governor's remarks came after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed at their summit meeting in Washington on Tuesday the bilateral plan to relocate the Marine air base within Okinawa, in line with a bilateral agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.
"We will use every means available to us to prevent a new base from being built in Henoko," Onaga said.
The governor also criticized a joint statement issued by the foreign and defense chiefs of Japan and the United States earlier this week for failing to mention Tokyo's promise to Okinawa to suspend operations at the Futenma base within five years.
Onaga said he believed that it was a promissory note written by the central government without an intention to honor it, in order to win approval in late 2013 from his predecessor for landfill work off Henoko.