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WELLINGTON, April 2 (Xinhuanet) -- New Zealand government has asked that a shipment of radioactive nuclear waste, expected to pass through the Tasman Sea this weekend on its way to Japan, not enter New Zealand waters, an official said Saturday.

The British Nuclear Fuels shipment is carrying containers of vitrified nuclear waste which Japan sends to France for reprocessing, a spokesman for Environment Minister Marian Hobbs said, noting the British government had notified New Zealand authorities about the shipment.

"New Zealand accepts that international law allows freedom of passage on the high seas. But we do ask that states making shipments of nuclear waste close to New Zealand stay out of our Exclusive Economic Zone."

Tasman Sea is an arm of the southern Pacific Ocean between southeast Australia and western New Zealand, and New Zealand has insisted that no shipment of nuclear fuel or waste should come within its 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone.

The mixed oxide plutonium (MOX) waste had been reprocessed into a solid glass-like substance for storage in Japan, said the spokesman.

It is the tenth such shipment to pass through the Pacific, the spokesman said.