CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — No agreement is in the offing to move some Marine air operations on Okinawa to Kadena Air Base, a senior Japanese official has asserted.

Among issues not decided in ongoing U.S.-Japan talks, said Naoki Kumagai, deputy director of the ministry’s Status of Forces Agreement Division on Okinawa, are whether to:

Propose transferring Marine helicopters to Kadena;Move Marine refueling aircraft to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni;Make room for the Marines by asking that Navy P-3C patrol aircraft now at Kadena be transferred to a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force base on Kagoshima.Kumagai was reacting to Japanese news reports that Japan is about to abandon plans to build a base to replace the Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma.

“Various ideas have been exchanged; however, no specific decision has been made,” the senior Japanese official told Stars and Stripes. “Before making any specific decision, the government would make an effort to obtain understanding from the concerned local communities. We are not at that stage yet.”

Kanoya Mayor Sakae Yamashita, however, wasted no time saying he wanted no U.S. aircraft in his back yard. He demanded any proposal to move U.S. units to his town on Kagoshima, in southern Kyushu, be withdrawn.

Moving U.S. Navy patrol aircraft to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Kanoya Air Base, Yamashita said, “would completely destroy the trust built up between the base and residents over the years.

“Further, the planned joint use of the base by Japan and the United States would … result in an increase in noise pollution and potential danger, imposing an enormous burden to our citizens.”

A May 9 Overseas Basing Commission report to the Pentagon and Congress suggested moving Marine units from MCAS Futenma to Kadena Air Base and MCAS Iwakuni, as an alternative to the stalled plan for a new Marine air base off Okinawa’s northeast shore.

In 1996, the United States and Japan agreed to close MCAS Futenma once an alternate site could be found. Demands to close the base increased after a Marine helicopter crashed on a neighboring university campus last August.

In Tokyo, Fukushiro Nukaga, head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s panel on base realignment issues, told the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper officials are “quite uncertain about the future of the Futenma relocation plan.”

“I wonder if there’s a realistic plan,” Nukaga said. “We can’t leave this matter as is.”

He predicted a bilateral decision might be reached by the fall.

Kumagai said no date for an agreement has been set in U.S.-Japanese talks but he anticipates talks will start in the fall among Tokyo and localities that might be affected by realignments.

Marines on Okinawa had no new comment about the Japanese news reports. In the past, they have expressed a willingness to relocate MCAS Futenma whenever a “suitable replacement facility” is completed.

A spokesman for Kadena’s 18th Wing said it was not involved in the realignment talks.

Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.