QUOTES-BOJ Governor Ueda's comments at news conference

March 19 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady on Thursday but warned that rising oil costs from the Middle East conflict could fuel underlying inflation, signalling caution over mounting price pressures.

At the two-day meeting ending on Thursday, the BOJ left unchanged its short-term policy rate at 0.75%. Hawkish board member Hajime Takata repeated an unsuccessful proposal he made in January to push up rates to 1.0%.

Following are excerpts from BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda's comments at his post-meeting news conference, which was conducted in Japanese, as translated by Reuters:

ON FUTURE RATE HIKES

"As for the likelihood and timing of future rate hikes, we will make a decision looking at the economy, price developments at the time, as well as the likelihood of durably achieving our price target."

BOJ FLAGS INFLATION UNCERTAINTY, MORE DATA AHEAD

"It will likely become increasingly difficult to gauge underlying inflation partly due to the government's steps to cushion the blow from inflation, and rising oil prices. As such, we will release more thorough information on core consumer inflation. We will also re-calculate Japan's estimated natural rate of interest and release our findings once necessary preparations are completed."

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)