TOKYO (AFP) – Tokyo's decision on relocating a controversial United States airbase on the southern Okinawa island could be delayed into next year, the foreign minister said Sunday amid a simmering row with Washington.

A string of local elections next year on the island could also sway the fate of the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said.

''I think the end of December can be a point of time by which we should work out a rough plan... but it may be delayed from this,'' Okada told a talk show on the private Asahi network.

The government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, which swept to power in September, has said it may want the base, now located in a densely populated area, moved off the island or even out of the country.

The United States has demanded Japan honor a 2006 agreement under which the Futenma base would be closed but its air operations moved to an alternative site to be built on Okinawa by 2014 in the coastal Camp Schwab area.

''Even if we decide to go ahead with the current plan (made in 2006), it would also have risks as a newly elected governor or mayor may turn it down,'' he said. ''We don't want to make a decision in a forcible way.''

The city of Nago, which hosts Camp Schwab, is to hold a mayoral election in January with polls for the city assembly scheduled for September. The current Okinawa prefectural governor's term expires in December 2010.

The present Nago mayor and Okinawa governor are in favor of the 2006 accord.

''We have to make efforts not to strain relations with the United States, but it would cause a bigger problem if we make a hasty decision and then find it impossible to implement,'' Okada said on television.

The Futenma base, which is located in Ginowan City, is at the center of Tokyo's simmering row with Washington days before President Barack Obama is due in the country.

Hatoyama has said he does not plan to make a decision before Obama's trip here.

Thousands were expected to rally near the Futenma base Sunday.