The dispute on the relocation of the noisy airbase on the southern island of Okinawa has strained ties with Washington for months and battered Yukio Hatoyama's support ratings ahead of upper house elections slated for July.

Hatoyama's centre-left government last year promised to move the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma off the island but, after finding no alternative location, last week admitted that it will have to stay on Okinawa.

However, the latest plan for a relocation within the island has proven unpopular both there and with defence planners in Washington, where senior officials from both sides met for seven hours at the Pentagon Wednesday.

Faced with no option likely to satisfy all sides and the clock ticking, Hatoyama conceded on Thursday that the issue may not be resolved by May 31, the deadline he set himself months ago.

"Since we don't know whether we will be able to get everything done, we will of course make efforts in June and after if there are things we have to discuss further," he told reporters in televised comments.

The Futenma base has long angered locals because of aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of crashes and frictions with American service personnel, especially after the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US troops.

Under a 2006 agreement -- struck while previous conservative governments ruled in Washington and Tokyo -- the base was due to be moved from the crowded city area of Ginowan to the quieter coastal stretch of Henoko.

After vowing to scrap the plan, Hatoyama has decided to go ahead with it after all, but reportedly with some changes -- including by building offshore runways on pylons rather than landfill to minimise environmental damage.

At the Washington talks, the US side is believed to have opposed the idea, in part because of concerns an elevated runway could more easily be targeted by terrorists than one built on landfill, Jiji Press reported.

US officials also said a runway on pylons would do little to protect the marine habitat below since the structure would still permanently block sunlight from reaching the seabed, reports have said.

Washington officials are also understood to oppose another idea proposed by Tokyo -- of moving some of the US Marines to another island, Tokunoshima, 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Okinawa -- as operationally unworkable.

Most people on Tokunoshima also adamantly oppose the plan, a point that local politicians said they again stressed in a meeting with Hatoyama's right-hand man, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, on Wednesday.

As the row has rumbled on, and Okinawans have held mass anti-base rallies, with another planned for Sunday, Hatoyama's cabinet approval poll ratings have crashed from more than 70 percent into the low 20 percent range.

Conservative opposition lawmakers have demanded Hatoyama resign if he fails to meet his election promise of easing the burden on Okinawa.

Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa jumped to the premier's defence Thursday.

"Prime Minister Hatoyama is now making efforts by attaching primary importance to reducing the burden for Okinawa," Kitazawa told a parliamentary committee on diplomacy and defence.

"This is not a question of whether to resign or not to resign. He is making efforts as the person in charge."

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