Japan wants Europe to make efforts to stabilize markets unsettled by the continued euro zone debt crisis and Tokyo is prepared to offer help if needed, Japanese currency tsar Takehiko Nakao said on Monday.

Nakao, the vice finance minister for international affairs also told a financial forum that a unilateral currency intervention could not be ruled out in a speculative market.

Tokyo has intervened to weaken its yen three times this year - once with the help of Group of Seven nations in March and then on its own in August and October when the yen scaled new highs against the dollar.

(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

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