Japan denies vote-buying on whaling

AFP, March, 2008

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Monday denied paying for delegates of small states to attend international whaling negotiations after the premier of the Solomon Islands said he received an offer from Tokyo.

Japan has long faced accusations of vote-buying as a growing number of developing countries with little tradition of whaling enter the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

But Hideki Moronuki, the whaling chief at Japan's Fisheries Agency, said: "There is no truth to it."

"Japan has never made any offer at all to pay costs," he told AFP.

Solomons Prime Minister Derek Sikua said Saturday that Japan offered to pay for the country's delegates to attend the latest IWC meeting in London.

Sikua said in a joint press conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a strong whaling opponent, that he turned down the offer and that his country therefore did not attend the meeting last ...