New US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has said the US is working to reach agreement on where to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.
Ms Price said she was aware of the issues involved in a question and answer session with US State Department staff on 31st January 2005 – four days after she was sworn in as the successor to Colin Powell.
Asked about the delay in choosing a site – with the EU insisting that ITER be built in Cadarache, France and Japan wanting the project in Rokkasho [see News No. 2, 4th January 2005] – she said: “You'll be very pleased to know that I do know personally about it and, in fact, have done some work on it. And the ITER project is a very important project and we hope it can move forward. We have backed the Japanese site (Rokkasho) at this point. But we have said to the EU that if they can work something out with the Japanese, then we will do whatever needs to be done here.”
However, Ms Price said scientists working under the direction of Jack Marburger, the science advisor to President George Bush, had selected Rokkasho as the ”scientifically best site, and we'll continue to work the problem… it's an important project and we need to try to break through what is currently this logjam.”
