U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her understanding Thursday of Japan's recent decision to put off until next year reaching a conclusion on the relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa Prefecture, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Friday.
     ''I told her about the current circumstances and I believe that she basically understood them,'' Hatoyama told reporters. ''I think it was a great opportunity for us to be able to reconfirm the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance.''
     The Japanese prime minister said he talked with Clinton for about an hour and a half on Thursday night as the two sat next to each other at a banquet hosted by Denmark's Queen Margrethe.
     During the banquet, Hatoyama told her that there are growing expectations among people in the southernmost Japanese prefecture that the burden of hosting bases may be alleviated following the election victory of his Democratic Party of Japan in August, he said.
     If his government were to force through an existing bilateral deal for the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station to be relocated within the prefecture, the outcome would be ''hard'' to deal with, the prime minister said he explained to Clinton.
     Therefore, he said, ''I told her (Clinton) that our government has just commenced trying to think of a new option and that I would like (the United States) to wait for a while.''
     Hatoyama recently postponed making a decision on the relocation issue, despite Washington's repeated pressure to stick to the original deal forged by Japan and the United States in 2006. The deal was reached under the government led by the Liberal Democratic Party, which is now the main opposition party.
     Under the 2006 deal, which was agreed as part of a broader realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, the Futemma facility that currently sits in a residential area of Ginowan will be transferred to Nago, another Okinawa city that is less densely populated.
     Hatoyama was initially hoping to convey the government's decision on the Futemma facility directly to President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
     But the premier told reporters that he only spoke with Obama briefly during an official climate meeting of state leaders.
     ''We held a brief conversation (saying things) like 'Hi, how are you?' and 'These (climate) talks aren't going well,''' Hatoyama said.
     Due to the stalemate in the climate talks, Hatoyama was not able to hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev either, although it had been anticipated that they would meet in Copenhagen.
     Hatoyama is set to return to Tokyo on Saturday.
==Kyodo