The government will push for one 1,800-meter runway at Cape Henoko in Nago, Okinawa, and its adjacent shallows for the new facility to replace U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the prefecture, sources said Thursday.
The new plan to relocate the Futenma base, now in the crowded city of Ginowan also on Okinawa Island, will be pitched to the U.S. during a working-level bilateral meeting to be held Thursday and Friday in Washington.
While Tokyo is not excluding the original plan to build two runways at the site in a V pattern, it feels one runway would suffice for operational requirements, the sources said.