Six nations and the European Union will decide in 10 days whether the revolutionary project goes to France or Japan.

The European Union last month chose the southern French town of Cadarache as its candidate to stand against the northern Japanese village of Rokkasho-mura for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

"South Korea's interests are completely compatible with the EU bid," said Pierre Lellouche, following talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun's foreign policy advisor Ban Ki-Moon and Foreign Minister Yoon Young-Kwan.

Energy ministers from the seven members of the ITER consortium -- the EU, Japan, Russia, China, Canada, the United States, and South Korea -- will make the final choice in Washington on December 20.

"If the decision is made on industrial and scientific grounds, we believe Cadarache faces no problems," said Lellouche, extolling European fusion know-how and France's unblemished record on nuclear safety.

The French National Assembly member is on a promotional tour on behalf of President Jacques Chirac to drum up support for Cadarache. He travels to Beijing on Thursday and then to Moscow.

Backers of the ITER project hope it will replicate the kind of nuclear fusion seen in the sun to deliver clean energy from hydrogen.

"If it is successful, it may the answer to the world's energy requirements for the next 200 years," said Dorian Prince, EU ambassador to Seoul, who accompanied Lellouche at a press conference.

Lellouche said the project costs would run to 12 billion dollars over 35 years to build and to run. Scientists were ready to work on an experimental reactor, but a commerical plant was still a generation away, he said.

The project's costs will be covered by the seven participants.

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