So it's official - both sides want peace. Or do they? As the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting came to a close, not everyone was convinced by the rhetoric of reason and good faith.

Heard in the corridor: "We've been down this road before", "They're not serious", "It's just a ploy to eat up time".

Even the keenest of those involved with the plan for pro- and anti-whaling countries to spend a year working out their differences and trying to agree some kind of compromise package acknowledge there is a great deal of ground to be covered.

"There's no doubt there are big gaps here between those who want to kill whales and those who want to conserve them," says New Zealand's whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer, whose background in international law and diplomacy is one of the reasons why the peace deal is even on the agenda...