Tokyo

Kisarazu Mayor Yoshikuni Watanabe on Wednesday voiced approval for the proposed provisional deployment of the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft in the city in Chiba Prefecture, eastern Japan.

During a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on the day, Defense Minister Taro Kono told Watanabe that his ministry will try to limit the Osprey deployment in the city to five years.

In reply, the mayor said that the city will “cooperate” for the deployment. The Defense Ministry plans to deploy 17 Ospreys at Saga Airport in the southwestern prefecture of Saga. But the plan has met opposition from a local fishery cooperative.

“We’ll move the Ospreys to Saga eventually,” Kono said, adding that Kisarazu is “a temporary place” to host the aircraft. How long the Ospreys will be deployed in Kisarazu has been a major source of concern for the city.

As conditions for accepting the temporary Osprey deployment, Watanabe asked Kono to take thorough measures to ensure safe operations of the aircraft, establish a relevant committee comprising parties concerned, including the ministry and the Kisarazu city government, and report progress in the work to prepare facilities needed to accept the Ospreys at Saga Airport.

Kono promised to respond to the requests in writing.

Jiji Press