New IWC chair 'can't promise' reaching final accord within year+

MADEIRA, Portugal, June 27 Kyodo -
The new chairman of the International Whaling Commission said Friday he ''can't
promise'' a final agreement within a year on a compromise proposal to allow
Japan to hunt whales in its coastal waters in return for scaling down or ending
its ''research whaling'' in the Antarctic Ocean.
''This 'one year thing' has been haunting me ever since I have been elected as
chair,'' said Cristian Maquieira, the Chilean ambassador to Paraguay.
During this year's annual IWC meeting held earlier this week, the IWC adopted a
resolution saying that the body will aim to reach a consensus on the proposal
by the time of the next annual meeting.
But he also expressed hopes for certain progress achieved in future
negotiations, saying, ''My personal expectation would be at the end of the
(upcoming negotiation) process, at the bare minimum, we have a framework of the
process, we have the basic element of an agreement.''
Maquieira, who recently took up the IWC chairmanship, made the remarks during
an interview with Kyodo News and the Associated Press on the Portuguese island
of Madeira, where the IWC held the annual meeting.
Japan says the country has made a substantial concession for the sake of
forging a package acceptable to both whaling and antiwhaling nations, while
accusing the antiwhaling camp of making no concessions.
Regarding the assertion, Maquieira said he is reluctant to say ''who has given
more concessions or less concessions.''
While Chile belongs to the antiwhaling camp, Maquieira noted he has ''very long
multilateral experience'' and that he will ''remain neutral'' in chairing the
whaling body. At the Chilean foreign ministry, he has worked on issues
including environmental problems.
Tokyo believes Article 8 of the International Convention for the Regulation of
Whaling allows IWC member countries to freely conduct whaling for research
purposes and sell the whales caught in such whaling on markets.
But the chairman said, ''There is a different interpretation today,'' referring
to strong opposition to Japan's research whaling by antiwhaling countries,
which include Australia, New Zealand and many European countries.
Although there remains a wide gap between the two camps, Maquieira said, ''The
one thing I know that the whaling camp and the conservation camp have agreed on
is the process to negotiate.''
He also said if the IWC wants to bridge the gap, both prowhaling and
antiwhaling countries ''are going to have to swallow very difficult
decisions.''
The IWC was set up under the 1946 whaling convention, whose purpose is to
provide for the ''proper conservation of whale stocks'' and thus make possible
the ''orderly development of the whaling industry.''
But as countries have since become more conscious about environmental issues in
general and due to other changes that have taken place in society, the IWC has
been in recent decades mostly restricting whaling, sparking a serious divide
between antiwhaling countries and countries that have traditionally engaged in
whaling.
Before wrapping up the annual meeting Thursday, the IWC agreed Chile, an
antiwhaling country, will take chairmanship of the whaling body over the coming
three years, with vice chairmanship to be assumed by Antigua & Barbuda, a
country in support of whaling.
==Kyodo