TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States is working on a proposal that would allow Japan to hunt whales near its own shores in exchange for scaling back its Antarctic whale hunt, the Washington Post reported. An official at Japan's Fisheries Agency declined to comment on the report on Monday, which comes as the members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) try to reach a compromise between pro- and anti-whaling nations. Under the draft proposal, Japan would be permitted to engage in coastal whaling near its shores in return for a cut in the number of Antarctic minke whales it culls every year in the Southern Ocean, the Post said.
IWC Chairman William Hogarth had been working on a pact over the weekend, it added.
Such a trade off has been floated in the past.
Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 treaty, with which Japan officially complied. But the Japanese government has continued what it calls a scientific whaling program, the target of criticism from anti-whaling countries such as Australia and Britain.
Japan's whaling fleet is currently engaged in its annual Antarctic whale hunt, aimed at catching about 900 whales.
Japan has frequently threatened to quit the IWC, but it has denied that the country would be better off if the IWC were to collapse. The group is set to hold its 61st annual meeting in Madeira in June.
A senior Japanese fisheries official said last week that the coming year would be "a moment of truth for the IWC" and added that if talks at the body failed, meetings could stop for several years.
(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka)
