Reykjavik  - Iceland was set to keep its increased whaling quota for the coming year, Fisheries Minister Steingrimur J Sigfusson said Wednesday.

The raised annual quota of 150 fin whales and 100 minke whales was announced at the end of January shortly before former Fisheries Minister Einar K Gudfinnsson left office.

Sigfusson added that it was not certain that Iceland would keep the quota for the coming five years as his predecessor had suggested.

Sigfusson is member of the Left-Green Movement, one of the two parties in the interim Icelandic government headed by Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardotdtir of the Social Democratic Alliance.

The interim government took office this month after the the grand coalition formed 2007 between Gudfinnsson's Independence Party and the Social Democratic Alliance collapsed amid mass protests.

Britain, Finland France, Germany, Sweden and the United States on Friday met Sifgusson and jointly urged him to stop the plans to allow the whaling, according to a statement from the Swedish Foreign Ministry and Environment Ministry.

Iceland angered conservationists in 2006 when the government said it would resume commercial whaling and set a quota of nine fin whales and 30 minke whales, of which six fin whales were caught.

New elections are due April 25 in Iceland that has been battered by the current financial crisis. The economy of the North Atlantic nation of some 320,000 people is facing severe contraction and unemployment is due to rise sharply. (dpa)