Japan official tells U.S. it will halt refueling mission in Jan.

REFILING: LEAD: Japan official tells U.S. it will halt refueling mission in Jan.+

Oct 14 09:12 PM US/Eastern

Japanese Parliamentary Defense Secretary Akihisa Nagashima said Wednesday he has notified the White House and Defense Department that Tokyo will halt, in January, its refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan.

Nagashima told reporters this after meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy in Washington.

The Japanese defense official quoted the White House and Pentagon officials as replying the United States views it as a matter to be decided by Japan in principle.

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa had made it plain that Tokyo will end the refueling mission after the law for the mission expires in January.

The refueling mission, in place since 2001, was briefly halted in November 2007 after a temporary law authorizing it expired. The operations resumed after a new law was enacted in January 2008 and were extended to January 2010 after an amendment last December.

Also Wednesday, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert Gates will urge Japan during his planned visit to Tokyo next Tuesday to implement a bilateral accord to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station within Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.

At a news briefing, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the defense chief will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Okada and Defense Minister Kitazawa, respectively.

The talks will be "an opportunity to reiterate our strong commitment to this alliance, and also to the agreements that have been reached between our two governments -- not political parties, but between our two governments," Morrell said.

Hatoyama, who took office in mid-September, has said his government will seek to move the heliport functions of the Futemma air station outside Okinawa, or even outside Japan.

That goes against a Japan-U.S. accord in 2006 to transfer the air station to an area off the coast of Henoko in the city of Nago near the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab by 2014.

The Japanese government led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which was the largest opposition party when the agreement was concluded, has been studying how the accord was reached, including the choice of the relocation site.