TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has proposed to cut its annual hunt target for Antarctic minke whales by about half in return for resuming coastal whaling at an informal International Whaling Commission meeting, Kyodo News Agency said on Tuesday.
Japan suggested to 12 nations at a meeting in Washington last week that it will catch about 400 Antarctic minke whales instead of the current annual target of about 850 if it can commercially hunt whales off its coast, Kyodo reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The report comes ahead of Thursday's planned release of a revised IWC compromise deal, which was crafted to prevent the collapse of the 88-nation commission over long-running differences between pro- and anti-whaling countries.
An official at the Japanese Fisheries Agency said he was unable to comment on negotiation details.
Japan, among the only three countries that now hunt whales, introduced scientific whaling to skirt the commercial whaling ban under a 1986 IWC moratorium, arguing it had a right to watch the whales' impact on its fishing industry. Australia, New Zealand and other nations want to ban all whaling.
The annual IWC meeting is scheduled for June in Morocco.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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