TOKYO, May 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted down a key Japanese proposal Thursday designed to pavethe way for a resumption of commercial whaling.

¡¡¡¡IWC member countries rejected the proposal by a large margin, with 25 voting against, 16 in favor and three abstaining.

¡¡¡¡The proposal was intended to lift the 16-year-old moratorium oncommercial whaling and set catch quotas on a range of whale species.

¡¡¡¡Earlier in the day, participants in the annual IWC convention in Shimonoseki, western Japan, rejected a U.S.-Russian proposal torenew a five-year "aboriginal subsistence" catch quota of 280 bowhead whales for native peoples in Alaska and Siberia.

¡¡¡¡Japan's chief delegate Minoru Morimoto said Japan voted againstthe U.S.-Russia aboriginal whaling bid not because it had lost sympathy for indigenous people, but due to the length of the five-year permit, which it says would endanger vulnerable whale species.

¡¡¡¡Japan rejected the proposed consensus on the issue Wednesday because the IWC earlier this week voted down its bid to obtain permission for four Japanese communities to hunt 50 minke whales in coastal waters.

¡¡¡¡Japan accused the U.S. of having a double standard in opposing Japan's whaling bid on the one hand and calling for whaling quotasfor its indigenous people in Alaska on the other. Enditem

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