When Norway announced plans to resume commercial whaling next year it also said it was braced for a storm. The storm came.

Fifteen countries signed a U.S.-sponsored statement Tuesday urging Norway to reconsider resuming commercial whaling in defiance of an International Whaling Commission moratorium.The European Commission, in a strongly worded statement, called on Norway and Iceland, which quit the whaling group, to "maintain their credibility as nations . . . and refuse to condone brutal practices such as the killing of marine mammals."

A coalition of 28 conservation groups condemned Norway. "The timing and nature of the Norwegian statement is intended to subvert the decisionmaking process of the IWC. It is a blatant attempt by Norway to impose its will on the commission," they said in a statement.

In Canberra, Australia, environment minister Roz Kelly said whaling contradicts a biodiversity agreement signed by many nations, including Iceland, at the Rio earth summit in June.

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"Hunting and killing whales has no place in the commercial or scientific activities of civilized countries," she said in a statement.

With Norway, Japan and Iceland seeking to end the moratorium, France pressed for support to make Antarctic waters a sanctuary for whales at the commission's 44th annual meeting.

The effort was spurred by an announcement on Monday by Norway's prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, that Norway would begin killing minke whales for profit again next year. She believes northeast Atlantic stocks are sufficiently large.

The commission's scientists estimate there are 760,000 minke whales in the Antarctic and 86,700 in the northeast Atlantic.

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