The Fisheries Agency will allow catches of southern bluefin tuna up to Japan's original quota of 6,065 tons this year following an international tribunal decision nullifying an interim ruling that cut the quota by about 1,500 tons, agency officials said Saturday.

In August 1999, the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued an interim ruling calling on Japan to stop experimental fishing of southern bluefin tuna and slashing Japan's catch quota for 2000 by about 1,500 tons.

But a decision earlier this month by a Washington-based tribunal, which was established under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, nullified the ruling.

The Hamburg ruling also cut Japan's catch quota for 1999 by 711 tons, which Japan now has the right to claim.

"Japan has the right to the (1999) quota (lost under the ruling), but has yet to decide how to invoke it," an agency official said.

Japan's southern bluefin tuna catch quota is more than half the annual haul of 11,750 tons allowed under an agreement with Australia and New Zealand, which aims to conserve stocks of the endangered fish.

Japan has been seeking a separate quota for research fishing but has not attained an agreement, prompting it to conduct research fishing within its quota for commercial fishing.

Japan netted around 2,200 tons of the fish for research in 1999, which it says allows it to determine the size of southern bluefin tuna stocks. Conservationists, however, fear the bluefin is close to extinction due to overfishing.

Japan earlier this month began a month's fishing of southern bluefin in the Indian Ocean for research purposes with the aim of catching around 4 tons.