By Rob Taylor
Corrects to add dropped word "not" in 12th paragraph.
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Militant anti-whaling activists threatened commando-style raids on Thursday against a Japanese whaling boat holding two colleagues, as Japan called for Australia to end a standoff in frigid seas near the Antarctic.
"We will try and do everything we can to stop them killing whales. That's what we are doing down here," Paul Watson, captain of the anti-whaling protest ship Steve Irwin, told local media.
!ADVERTISEMENT!Whaling has halted in the Southern Ocean after two anti-whaling activists were detained after scrambling aboard a Japanese whaling boat on Tuesday to deliver a protest letter.
Both sides have accused the other of behaving like terrorists and the Japanese have given Watson a list of conditions for the return of Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane.
Steve Irwin's widow, Terri Irwin, on Thursday backed the radical tactics employed by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Watson, who last year collided with a Japanese whale hunter.
"I'm very proud of Paul Watson for doing something so actively positive to save whales," Irwin told Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Surveys showed most Australians thought the group had gone too far in Tuesday's protest.
Japanese whaling officials have said they are prepared to release the two activists to a Sea Shepherd zodiac boat if the Steve Irwin protest ship stays 10 nautical miles clear of the whaler Yushin Maru No.2 during the transfer.
"We want to hand them over as soon as possible and have offered to do so, but there has been no response from Sea Shepherd," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said.
But Watson has rejected the conditions and said he may launch more protest action if the transfer was made directly to his ship, named after the late Australian television conservationist.
"We board poaching vessels all the time," he said, threatening a commando-style raid on the Japanese ship by other activists if the standoff was not resolved.
"It would be an act of desperation, but I'm not going to let them take them back to Japan," Watson said.
MORE PROTESTS
A spokesman for the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research said the skipper of the whaling boat feared more protests if Watson came alongside and the two activists may have to be taken to Japan if the Sea Shepherd continued to not co-operate.
"They have to realize we're not just going to tie up the Yushin Maru to the Steve Irwin vessel," Glenn Inwood told Reuters. "It's just not going to happen like that, there are security risks associated with that," he said.
Inwood said one solution to the standoff that has halted whaling for the last six days could be for Australia to take the two men on board a government fisheries boat en route to the Japanese fleet to monitor the whaling hunt.
"The Sea Shepherd people can agree to keeping the Steve Irwin 10 nautical miles away and sending a zodiac, or the Australians can intervene and act as an intermediary," he said. "Otherwise they'll have to stay on board at this stage."
Machimura said Japan had asked for help from Australia's government and Canberra's Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said the fisheries patrol icebreaker Oceanic Viking was within sight of the Japanese fleet and could take the two activists on board.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Smith was in talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and urged all sides to exercise restraint.
"I have concerns about the safety of all people involved," Rudd said.
The Oceanic Viking is seeking to gather photo and video evidence for an international legal challenge against Tokyo's "scientific" whaling.
Japan plans to hunt almost 1,000 minke and fin whales for research over the Antarctic summer, but has abandoned the cull of 50 humpback whales after international condemnation and a formal diplomatic protest by 31 nations.
Despite a moratorium on whaling, Japan is allowed an annual "scientific" hunt, arguing whaling is a cherished cultural tradition and the hunt is necessary to study whales. Its fleet has killed 7,000 Antarctic minkes over the past 20 years.
(Additional reporting by Giles Beckford in Wellington and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo; Editing by Alex Richardson)
