New Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki on Wednesday vowed to fight against the transfer of a key U.S. airbase within the island prefecture, a day after the central government moved closer to resuming construction work — suspended in August — at the planned relocation site.
"I want to fulfill my pledge to halt the construction of the new military base and I will commit to it with all my heart," said Tamaki, who won the Sept. 30 gubernatorial election following the death of his predecessor Takeshi Onaga, at a news conference in Tokyo.
The feud over the plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a densely populated area in Ginowan to the less populated coastal district of Henoko in Nago heated up in late August, when the Okinawa Prefectural Government retracted its earlier approval for landfill work at the Henoko site.