The incident happened late last week, as the vessel followed a boat belonging to activist² group Sea Shepherd. 

 

New Zealand diplomats³ "made it very clear" that the Japanese vessel was not welcome, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said. 

 

The vessel ignored the request, he said, prompting an official protest. 

 

"On my instructions, the Japanese ambassador this afternoon met with a senior MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) official who conveyed New Zealand's deep disappointment at the vessel's entry into our EEZ," Mr McCully said in a statement on Monday.

 

The summons followed a similar action on Friday, when the most senior Japanese embassy representative present - the deputy head of mission - was called in. 

 

After that meeting, Mr McCully said in a statement that Japanese whalers "had been insensitive to the views of New Zealanders by entering New Zealand's EEZ against our wishes".

 

The decision, he said, was "unhelpful, disrespectful and short-sighted".

 

The Japanese vessel, the Shonan Maru 2, did not enter New Zealand's territorial⁴ waters. It sailed in the EEZ, which lies between 12 and 200 nautical⁵ miles from the coastline. 

 

New Zealand "has no legal means of excluding any vessel from entering", the Sunday statement acknowledged. 

 

The Shonan Maru No 2 is one of the escort vessels⁶ for the Japanese fleet, which heads south every year to hunt whales. 

 

There has been a ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan catches about 1,000 whales each year for what it calls scientific research. Critics say it is commercial whaling in another guise⁷.

 

Activist group Sea Shepherd follows the fleet south and tries to disrupt the hunt. In recent years there have been numerous clashes and incidents. 

 

Australia, backed by New Zealand, is currently taking action against the Japanese whalers at the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague.

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