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 reporters.

Solomons Prime Minister Derek Sikua said on 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 week.

Japan is pushing for the sharply divided IWC to end its 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, which is backed by major Western nations.

Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, continues to kill up to 1,000 whales a year using a loophole that allows 'lethal research' on the giant mammals.

Only Norway and Iceland defy the IWC moratorium outright.

Mr Moronuki said Mr Sikua may have confused the London meet with a seminar last week in Tokyo to which Japan invited delegates from 12 developing nations that have recently joined or are considering joining the IWC.

Delegates from Angola, Cambodia, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ghana, Laos, Malawi, Palau, Tanzania and Vanuatu held talks in Tokyo and visited traditional whaling town Taiji in western Japan.

Micronesia sent embassy officials to participate in the seminar.

'Japan sometimes holds small seminars on whaling and invites delegates from countries. I wonder if Mr Sikua mixed up such seminars and IWC meetings,' Mr Moronuki said.

But the Japanese foreign ministry, which organised the seminar, said the Solomon Islands was not even invited.

'Solomons has a long history of being part of the IWC,' said a foreign ministry official.

'The seminar was for new members and the states considering joining.'

The foreign ministry official also denied Japan pays for IWC delegates from small states.

At the three-day meeting in London, the IWC united to condemn tactics of hardline conservationists who are trying to physically stop Japan's controversial whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean.

Hard tactics
The US-based Sea Shepherd group twice last week threw onto the Japanese fleet what Tokyo described as acid, lightly injuring three crew and coast guard members.

The group said it was only rotten butter and alleged that Japan shot the ship's captain. Japan said it only threw warning grenades that do not cause injuries.

Some Japanese hardliners have called for the officially pacifist nation to make a tougher response.

'They're acting just like pirates,' outspoken hawkish lawmaker Shoichi Nakagawa said.

'Japanese crew members were injured. They shouldn't just be using warning grenades but also weapons to defend themselves,' Mr Nakagawa said of the whaling crew.

'They should help their own ship by making threats or sinking' the Sea Shepherd ship, he said on Sunday. -- AFP