Officials at the Okinawa Bureau of the Defense Ministry announced that the bureau would ignore the prefecture’s request for an opinion at a hearing the prefecture has to hold according to the law before revoking the Henoko landfill permit.

The Defense Ministry in Tokyo announced Friday that they have instructed Its Okinawa Bureau not to comply with Okinawa Prefecture’s renewed request to give opinions at the hearing.

According to Hirofumi Takeda, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry said that the ministry’s position is that, “There was no flaw in the approval procedures and the cancellation will therefore be illegal.”

The Okinawa Prefectural Government plans to start the motions Monday afternoon even if the defense bureau refuses to respond to its request. Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga is then expected to make his decision to cancel the approval official on Tuesday paving the way for the dispute to move to the courts.

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