Moreover, Fursenko is convinced that the project should be launched within the foreseeable future - "mankind cannot wait years".
In the meantime, as the Kyodo Tsushin agency reported, the high executive body of the EU - the European Commission - met on Tuesday to recommend the Council of Ministers of the European Union to decide on the construction of the controversial reactor on its territory unless it agrees with Japan. If the Council's November 25-26 meeting accepts this proposal, then the European Union may go over from words to deeds without waiting for Japan's response, the agency said.
According to sources in the chancellery of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan may still back out of the construction of a thermonuclear reactor on its territory in exchange for a new computer research and development institute sited in Japan.
Earlier, Japan categorically denied its readiness to be content with any compensation for its refusal to locate the reactor in the village of Rokkasho in the north-east of the main island of Honshu and its consent to allow the first thermonuclear reactor to be built in the French town of Cadarache.
So far, representatives of the European Union, Russia, Japan, the US, China and South Korea working on the joint project of a thermonuclear reactor which is scheduled to cost $13 billion in the next 30 years, have made no progress since their last meeting in June. On Monday and Tuesday, another attempt was made in Vienna to decide on the site for the reactor's construction.
The United States and South Korea support Japan's wish to have the reactor on its territory, while Russia and China consider the European Union to be a more suitable site.
