Why plan by US and Japan to relocate Okinawa airbase is hitting turbulence

For nearly three decades, Washington and Tokyo have pledged to close a controversial US airbase in Okinawa, located in the middle of a densely populated island, but the plan is now facing uncertainty.The US military would not return its Futenma airbase to Japanese control until Tokyo builds a longer runway than the one being built at a replacement site in the northeast of Okinawa prefecture, according to a report.Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday that the US Department of Defence had informed a US congressional audit body, the Government Accountability Office, that Marine Corps Air Station Futenma would not be handed back until its operational requirements were met.If the US refuses to relocate its forces to the new facility at Henoko, the already prolonged transfer could face further delays, a scenario that analysts say risks reigniting sentiment among residents in Okinawa against the American military presence and complicating plans between the US and Japan to realign their forces in the Indo-Pacific.Futenma has a single runway measuring 2.74km (1.7 miles). The replacement facility at Camp Schwab, in the village of Henoko, is designed to have two runways in a V configuration once offshore reclamation and construction works are completed, with each envisioned to be 1.8km in length.Proposals to close Futenma date back five decades, although they only gained traction in the late 1990s when Henoko was identified as the replacement site. Critics have described Futenma as the most dangerous airfield in the world, as many residents live in the vicinity of the airbase.