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Returning airport to Japan too risky, researchers say

Regional security threats make the return of a US military air base near Tokyo to Japanese control still too risky, a private American research institute said in a study to be presented to Japan's Defense Agency.

But the US military should gradually share the airport at Yokota Air Base with Japanese forces and commercial airlines, the Washington-based Hudson Institute said in a report.

Return of the airport to Japan "only begins to take on an aura of possibility ... [after] resolution of the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Straits," said the report by the conservative institute.

Tensions have simmered between North and South Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War. North Korea and the US also have been locked in a standoff over the communist country's nuclear ambitions.

The US military's exclusive use of Yokota Air Base, located just west of Tokyo, has long been a contentious issue in Japan.

Local residents complain about jet noise, while commercial airlines chafe at not being able to use prime airspace and landing facilities so close to the congested capital.

Tokyo's outspoken governor, Shintaro Ishihara, has repeatedly called for the base to be returned to Japan or made available for joint use as a commercial airport.

"The most practical arrangement at Yokota may be joint use between the US Air Force and Japan's SDF [Self-Defense Forces]," said the report, which was to be presented yesterday to the Defense Agency and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

Such an arrangement would allow more efficient use of the airport, while also helping the two countries' air forces better integrate their activities, it said. The US has about 50,000 troops stationed in Japan under a joint security treaty.

Commercial operations could be introduced later. But that poses problems, such as getting commercial flights to conform to strict military security regulations and possible interference with US military activities during an emergency.

"Given serious, unresolved security issues in northeast Asia ... any conversion to military-civilian dual use at Yokota should proceed slowly," it said.

US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed in May last year to have their governments study the feasibility of using the airport as a joint facility.

The Hudson Institute was commissioned by a conservative Japanese philanthropic organization, the Nippon Foundation, to supplement that study.

Yokota Air Base is 38km west of central Tokyo and houses the headquarters of US Forces Japan.
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