The Australian government says South Korea has indicated that it will abandon plans to hunt whales for scientific research.
The country sparked an international outcry last week when it unveiled the plan at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Panama.
It said minke whales were eating fish stocks along its coastline and it was considering hunting them.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Thursday said he had held talks on whaling with his Korean counterpart Kim Sung-Hwan at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia.
"I was very heartened that he indicated to me that plans for scientific whaling, as it's called, would not proceed," Mr Carr told the ABC.
The plan would have used a loophole in the global whaling moratorium to resume the killing of whales in South Korean waters for so-called scientific research.
Bob Carr says the Korean government was very divided over the issue and praised its announcement, saying the country can now become a global green superpower.
