TOKYO, May 23 (AFP) - The Japanese government Sunday resumed its campaign to appease Okinawans angry over US military bases by promoting preparations to host a Group of Eight (G8) summit there next year. Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, winding up a two-day tour of the sub-tropical island chain, said the local US military commander had offered an air base to be used by G8 leaders. Komura said the offer was made by Brigadier General James Smith when they met at Kadena air base in the centre of the main Okinawan island. "No decision has been made at this moment. We will like to explore every possibility," the foreign minister told a news conference in the main Okinawa city of Naha. Naha airport is seen as inadequate to handle delegations from the world's seven industrial powers and Russia, as well as thousands of journalists and police during the summit in late July 2000. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi named Okinawa as the 2000 summit host on April 29, the day he flew to the United States for a summit with President Bill Clinton. The G8 summit this year is scheduled for June 18-20 in Cologne, Germany. The choice of Okinawa among eight Japanese locations was widely seen as a gesture to woo the islanders. They are angry at the concentration of US forces on their island chain, which houses 60 percent of the 47,000 US troops in Japan and three quarters of the US facilities. The foreign minister said he understood that the Okinawan people had "difficulty due to the concentration of bases." On Saturday Okinawa governor Keiichi Inamine asked Komura to arrange a meeting between G8 leaders and "peace-minded" Okinawan people, according to press reports. Komura called the idea "wonderful" and promised to try to arrange such a meeting, the reports said. The foreign minister inspected Nago, which will host the 2000 G8 summit, and toured major US bases and memorials to those who died in the World War II battles for Okinawa. Okinawa, the country's poorest prefecture, sees the summit preparations as a catalyst for development after relying for years on tourism and the US military presence. Nago has spurned the idea of building an offshore heliport to replace a US Marine Corps air station, as part of a 1996 agreement to return 20 percent of land occupied by the US military in Okinawa. The agreement, spanning seven years, followed major anti-US protests after the rape of an Okinawa schoolgirl by three US servicemen in 1995. -=-=- 