| Chugoku Shimbun Peace News = Kyodo | |
| Local assembly protests U.S. flight training in Okinawa Pref. | '02/8/9 |
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NAHA, Japan, Aug. 9 Kyodo -- The city assembly of Ginowan in Okinawa decided Friday to send a protest resolution to U.S. military forces in the prefecture and a letter to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urging the U.S. military to stop training flights following an incident last week, council officials said. At an extraordinary session, the assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling on U.S. forces to immediately terminate practice flights over the city's residential areas and for the early handover of the Futemma Air Station in Ginowan. On Aug. 2, a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 helicopter from Futemma Air Station made an emergency landing on a shore about 50 meters from private homes in Ginoza village on central Okinawa Island. The resolution criticizes the U.S. forces for continuing to conduct repeated daytime and nighttime training flights after the incident. It also says residents' concerns and fears have reached a limit as they have to constantly worry about the danger to their lives and property. In 1996, the Japan-U.S. Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) reached an agreement to relocate the Futemma Air Station. On July 29, the central government and local authorities in Okinawa Prefecture agreed on a basic relocation plan featuring construction of a military-civilian airport with a 2,500-meter runway on land to be reclaimed from the sea off Nago, northern Okinawa.
    
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