Australian minister warns Japan of whale action

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http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=213292&s=&i=&t=Australian_minister_warns_Japan_of_whale_action


Australia's foreign minister Stephen Smith warned of potential legal action to stop Japan whaling, despite calls for calm from both sides over the increasingly emotive dispute. Japan aims to slaughter about 1,000 whales this year in Antarctic waters despite strong opposition from Western countries led by Australia and environmental groups who revere the giant mammals.

The stark difference in opinion has turned the annual meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) into intense confrontations, with Japan repeatedly threatening to walk out.

In a bid to break the deadlock, the Pew Charitable Trusts, a US-based non-governmental group, arranged two days of closed-door talks this week in Tokyo involving nearly 100 people from both sides of the issue.

"We concluded that an internationally accepted solution is preferable, although we all question whether a political will exists," said the symposium's chairman, Tuiloma Neroni Slade, a former judge at the International Criminal Court. Joji Morishita, the director for international negotiations at Japan's Fisheries Agency, was tight-lipped on any compromise. "All I can say is that we are prepared to talk about options with an open mind so as we can have true negotiations and true dialogue," Morishita said.

But Greenpeace Japan's executive director, Jun Hoshikawa, said the true battle lay in Japan, where few people eat whale despite the adamant position of the government. "The whaling issue has had a sad history of being framed as a battle between Japanese people versus outsiders. That's not true," he said.