Japan's premier Yoshihiko Noda offered a personal apology to Okinawa over his government's attitude to the moving of an unpopular US air base.
In his first trip as prime minister to the subtropical island chain, Noda on Monday told governor Hirokazu Nakaima he intended to stick with a long-stalled plan to shift the air base, but was sorry for the way the issue had been handled.
"We mustn't fix the Futenma air station" at its current site, Noda told Nakaima, referring to a 2006 agreement for the base to be relocated from its crowded urban location to a sparsely populated coastal zone. But a bowing Noda added: "I apologise to the governor and people of Okinawa" for the insincere attitude the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has shown towards the issue. (AFP)