The Dutch Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it has not received any request from the Japanese government demanding The Hague to act to stop environmental group Greenpeace from harassing Japanese whaling ships.

"No, we haven't received any request from the Japanese side," Foreign Ministry press officer Edu Willemse told Xinhua.

Japan said Tuesday that it had demanded the Netherlands to rein in Greenpeace after Sunday's collision between a Japanese whaling vessel and a Greenpeace ship sailing under the Dutch flag.

Each side blamed the other side for the clash, which did not resulted in any injuries.

Willemse said the Dutch foreign ministry had contacted Greenpeace and had seen a video posted on the organization's website, which "showed clearly" that the Japanese ship was at fault.

The Dutch government does not plan to take any action at this stage on this matter, he said.

Also on Wednesday, Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research, the country's main whaling body, put a video on its website that showed Greenpeace's ship Arctic Sunrise moving steadily forward before hitting the whaling ship Nisshin Maru.

The institute said on its site that Arctic Sunrise could have avoided the collision but chose not to, and the ramming was "a deliberate action to get media coverage."

"This cannot be called a peaceful protest," it said.

Hideki Moronuki, head of the whaling section at the Japanese fisheries agency, on Tuesday described the accident as "very dangerous".

"If activists escalate violent demonstrations, ignoring all calls from authorities to restrain themselves, then we have to consider tougher measures," he said.

"We have asked the Netherlands to stop the pirate-like dangerous activities by Greenpeace, as their boat is registered in the Netherlands," said the official.

Greenpeace said it is against violent confrontation and its activists only put themselves between the whalers and the whales.

It said its ship was circling a whale reserve near the South Pole when the collision occurred, noting the grave nature of whale hunting in this area.

Commercial whaling has been banned worldwide since 1986 but Japan has continued hunting for what it calls scientific research. Despite international protests, Japan has more than doubled its annual catch of minke whales to 935 and added 10 fin whales this year.

Greenpeace has denounced Japan's plan to gradually lift the fin whales catch to 50, along with 50 humpback whales, both of which are seriously endangered species.

Source: Xinhua