The central government and the Okinawa Prefectural Government appear headed for a legal battle over the transfer of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, after the state restarted work Saturday to relocate the base within the prefecture.

The resumption of the work in the Henoko district of the coastal city of Nago came only a day after the Okinawa government finished its survey on coral damage off the relocation site.

¡°We needed to restart the work immediately after the Okinawa survey in order to demonstrate our strong determination on the base transfer,¡± a senior Defense Ministry official said.

Meanwhile, a top Okinawa Prefectural Government official responded calmly, saying that the central government move was ¡°within expectations.¡±

The central government suspended the work Aug. 10 to hold intensive talks with the Okinawan side in an effort to obtain its understanding for the Futenma relocation.

But the talks ended in failure last Monday, with both sides refusing to budge from their basic positions. While the central government argued that the current plan is the only viable option to reduce the danger posed by the base, which is located in a densely populated residential area n the city of Ginowan, the local government is strongly opposed to moving the base within the prefecture and demanded that it be moved out of Okinawa.

Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga is slated to hold a news conference Monday to announce the prefecture¡¯s decision to begin procedures that would invalidate its approval for reclamaiming land off Henoko for the new facility¡¯s construction. The permission was given to the central government in December 2013 by then-Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima.

After Onaga¡¯s announcement, the Okinawa government is expected to conduct a hearing from the Defense Ministry¡¯s Okinawa Defense Bureau.

As the hearing is expected to take about a month, Onaga¡¯s decision to cancel the landfill permit is likely to come in mid-October.

Once the approval is canceled, the Defense Ministry is expected to file a complaint with the land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister under the administrative appeal law, with the aim of overturning the cancellation and continuing the Futenma relocation work.

If the relocation work continues, the Okinawa side may file a lawsuit against the state to block the work.

While the central and Okinawa governments are sharply at odds over the base relocation issue, they have both begn to see a legal battle as inevitable.