Okinawa vote seen as boosting bid to relocate US base

TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday welcomed the result of a mayoral election in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa seen as key to pushing ahead with a decades-old plan to relocate a US military base.

Taketoyo Toguchi, a candidate backed by Abe's ruling bloc, narrowly won Sunday's vote in the town of Nago in northern Okinawa, preventing incumbent Susumu Inamine from serving a third term, the local election board said.

Indamine is a strong opponent of the United States-Japan project to move the US Marines' Futenma Air Station from an urban area in the south of Okinawa to Nago, which lies on the coast.