In a further escalation of the political battle between Tokyo and Okinawa, the central government filed a lawsuit against Gov. Takeshi Onaga on Tuesday.
The suit demands that the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court order Onaga to retract his decision to revoke permission granted by his predecessor to conduct landfill work related to the ongoing project to relocate the U.S. Futenma air base.
This is the first lawsuit of its kind since 1995, when the central government brought a suit against then-Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota, who had refused to sign documents necessary to expropriate land plots used for 11 U.S. bases in the prefecture.