Japan's central government on Tuesday hit a major stumbling block in their efforts to relocate a controversial US airbase on Okinawa, as the prefecture's governor Takeshi Onaga revoked approval for landfill work meaning the ongoing standoff will likely have to be settled in court.

Onaga, a staunch opponent to the central government's plans to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the densely populated region of Ginowan, to the coastal region of Henoko also on Okinawa island, told a local press conference that there were defects in the permit granted for the refill work by his predecessor former Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima.

"It was recognized that there are defects in the approval and we decided that rescinding it is reasonable," Onaga told a press conference at the prefectural office building in Naha, the capital of Okinawa.

"We will do our best to fulfill my promise not to build a new base in Henoko," Onaga said, adding that officials in the prefecture had found flaws in the permit significant enough to revoke the authorization.

He also explained that the people of Okinawa were growing increasingly exasperated with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the central government's initial bid to try and resolve the deadlock through "empathetic" dialogue with Onaga and other senior prefectural officials, in a bid to gain the local Okinawan's understanding on the issue.

The nature in which the central government swiftly resumed preparatory work off Henoko for the huge landfill project after just one month of intensive talks with officials on the island ended deadlocked, showed that Abe and his administration were merely trying to placate the locals and feigned trying to understand their true sentiments regarding their disproportionate base hosting burdens, Onaga explained.

Having completed all the legal procedures Onaga said the regional defense bureau has been given a chance to present its case for negation, with the bureau likely to apply to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism for a temporary injunction and for his decision to be overturned, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said Tuesday.

The case will likely end up in a court battle between the central and prefectural governments, NHK added, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, telling a news conference in Tokyo that the central government is mulling legal action to block Onaga's revocation.

"The central government sees no legal flaws in the approval for landfill work given in 2013 by then Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima," Suga said, adding that, "Revoking the approval is extremely regrettable as it ignores the efforts made so far by officials in Okinawa and the central government to eliminate the risks posed by the Futenma base."

"Construction work will continue as planned with the utmost care being taken to protect the environment," concluded Japan's top government spokesperson.

Separately Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told a press briefing that the central government would "promptly take action to ask the land minister to suspend the revocation," although noted that the central government's move for an injunction would likely not take place on Tuesday.

The central government on Sept. 12 resumed peripheral measures for the restarting of construction work in Henoko following the failed talks between both central and local governments on the issue, with neither side conceding any ground or willing to make any compromises despite the fifth and final round of talks concluding a week earlier, in a last ditch attempt to find some common ground for both parties to move forward on.

But while Abe and his administration is adamant that it will proceed with its plans to resume relocation work for the new base as per its original plans, opposition from both the island's locals and officials has been growing following no headway being made on official talks on the stalled issue and a shared sense among the islanders that the central government has no intention of listening to their concerns and wishes.

Approval for the landfill work was originally given in Dec. 2013 by former Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, but was found to be flawed by a third-party prefectural panel, which found that the prior approval for given for a seabed survey in Henoko, which has already started but remains unfinished, has legal defects.

Onaga, who has previously expressed his "strong resentment" towards Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama's renewed resolve to forge ahead with the unpopular base move, despite the mounting local opposition, is now, as he has previously stated, planning to force the central government to take the case to court and argue its case that the correct measures were mandated to protect the local environment of Nago's pristine Henoko coastal region.

Court action, as sources have confirmed Tuesday, will ensure that the central government will not be able to proceed with its plans to relocate the base, fortifying the southernmost prefecture's campaign against the move and, even if the flaws are revoked, will significantly delay if not derail the central government's contentious plans.

The central government, for its part, will likely step up its campaign by ordering the cancellation of Onaga's legal move under the prefecture's autonomy law, while the defense bureau will lean on the land ministry to probe the case with the hope of it issuing a suspension to the rescinding, the sources said.

Either way, Onaga's latest step will tie the central government up in legal procedures that will impede its moves to relocate the base.

While the central government has stated there is a "big gap" on how to remove the dangers posed by the Futenma base and that it " could not" gain the understanding of the prefecture including both officials and the public, in a bid to show the central government just how much opposition they are facing, sources close to Onaga have said he is also planning to hold a referendum on the issue that could take place as early as next year, to put more pressure on Abe to find an alternative solution to the base's relocation.

The prime minister has said that after the deadlock couldn't be broken relocation work must recommence at the earliest possible juncture, but Onaga, true to his campaign pledges, has held firm, and took the case to Geneva on Sept. 21 and 22 to seek international support to block the base's relocation -- delivering a speech at the UN Human Rights Council meeting.

Locals in Okinawa believe that the island and its people were forced to make disproportionate sacrifices during World War II and in the years thereafter, compared to the mainland, and, as such, the added burden of relocating the base is hugely inappropriate and wholly unacceptable.

The people of Okinawa do not support the plan to relocate the airbase and owing to Onaga, Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine, whose city will potentially host the new airbase and is also a staunch opponent to the relocation, other officials and the public, Washington has voiced its concern that the base's relocation will, once again, be considerably delayed, as has been the case under previous administrations here.

The ongoing impasse has irked the United States, as the central government continues to try and appease its ally by giving its assurances that the relocation and construction of the new base will go ahead as planned, but ties between Tokyo and Washington could become further strained over the issue as polls show that Abe has failed to sufficiently explain and gain the support of Onaga and the people of Okinawa of the central government's stance on the base's relocation.

Abe, whose popularity plummeted following his forcing of unconstitutional war bills into law recently in a bid to expand the nation's military scope, has said that the building of a new base partly on reclaimed land from the waters of Oura Bay in the coastal Henoko region of Okinawa, remains the only solution for the relocation of the Futenma base.

Onaga, however, has repeatedly said that the plans are unacceptable and that the government is "overly fixated" on the base's relocation to Henoko as being the only solution and should be "more empathetic" to the base hosting burdens of the Okinawa people.

In 1996 the Japanese and US governments inked an accord to close down the Futenma base, located in the crowded Ginowan district in Okinawa and return land occupied by the facility to Okinawa, with the transfer of the base's function's aimed, partly, at reducing the burden on Okinawa, which already hosts the bulk of US military facilities in Japan.

But the majority of Japanese people, including those on the mainland and on Okinawa island, believe Abe and his administration are terribly mishandling the base relocation issue, with the generality in Japan's southernmost prefecture wanting the new base relocated off the island at a bare minimum, and out of Japan if possible.

Despite Abe and Obama's commitment to relocate the base within the island, as was reconfirmed during a summit between the two leaders in April, the impasse remains between the central and prefectural governments and will be a growing source of concern to Washington who has said that the base's relocation should ideally be predicated on the acceptance and understanding of the local people of Okinawa.