In November 2000, the governor of Hokkaido, the mayor of Horonobe Town and the president of the JAEA signed an 'Agreement on the Research on Deep Geological Environment at Horonobe Town' to initiate and promote the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project. The main commitments involved are as follows:

• We never bring nor use any radioactive wastes in our research and development (R&D) area during and even after our R&D project.
• We will backfill the URL after our R&D project has been completed.
• We exclude our R&D area from becoming a repository nor interim storage facility site.

We shall comply with the Agreement and continue our R&D project with safety as our top priority.