The Australian government has banned Japanese fishing boats from Australian waters following a disagreement between the two countries over annual bluefin tuna quotas, Radio Australia reported on Thursday.

It said the decision was taken after officials from Australia, Japan and New Zealand meeting in Canberra failed to reach agreement on a tuna-fishing limit for this year.

Australian Resources Minister Warwick Parer said Tokyo had refused to agree to quotas at a responsible level and announced that it might introduce an experimental fishing programme above and beyond last year's catch limit.

Parer said Japan's position was completely unacceptable to Australia and accordingly Japanese fishing boats have been banned from Australian waters indefinitely.

The government would also not be renewing its annual bilateral fishing agreement with Japan, an accord that has been in place for nearly 20 years.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
 

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