OSAKA -- Local government and business leaders in the Kansai region met Thursday with senior transport ministry officials to discuss the future of the area's three airports.

The issue has become a topic of debate since last fall, when transport minister Chikage Ogi indicated that Osaka airport in the city of Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, would be downsized, a move seen by observers as an indication that the national government wants to direct more air traffic to Kansai International Airport and an airport under construction off Kobe.

In the first of what Kansai Economic Federation Chairman Yoshihisa Akiyama said he hoped would be a series of meetings to discuss the issue, officials of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry met with Akiyama, Osaka Gov. Fusae Ohta, Osaka Mayor Takafumi Isomura, Hyogo Gov. Toshizo Ido and Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada.