Japan's PM says decision on US base by May

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has vowed to decide on the issue of the relocation of the US military base in Okinawa by next May.

The relocation of the US base has become an issue between Japan and the US since September, when Hatoyama launched a coalition government. Washington has been pressuring Tokyo to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Hatoyama's center-left government, which came to power in August after almost five decades of conservative rule, pledged to reconsider past agreements concerning the US military presence in Japan and to adopt a position less subservient toward Washington.

During a press conference in Tokyo, Hatoyama said it is ''impossible'' to make the US wait too long before Tokyo decides on the issue.

The realignment plan involves moving about eight thousand US Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

Earlier this week, Japan's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa set May as the deadline to decide where to relocate a controversial US military air base.

"We must work as quickly as possible," Kitazawa told reporters on Tuesday, stressing that Tokyo hopes to settle the issue as quickly as possible.

Locals in Okinawa, which currently hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops stationed in Japan, associate the US military presence on the island with crime and pollution. They point to the account of the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by three American soldiers in 1995.