On 28th June 2005 the ITER Parties agreed to construct ITER in Cadarache, France. As part of this agreement Europe and Japan issued a Joint Paper, in which they described their participation in Broader Approach activities, including a “Satellite Tokamak” experiment, which later became known as JT-60SA. Since then the steps in developing the broader approach agreement (English version/ Japanese version(the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan)) and the activities covered by it, and the preparations for ITER construction, with the establishment of the ITER Organisation in October 2007, have been carried out mainly independently.

However, in addition to the ultimate complementarity of the operation of JT-60SA and ITER, the activities to construct the two devices have many overlaps:
• magnet conductor design and testing;
• design of cryoplant;
• in-vessel remote handling system;
• ECRH and neutral beam heating/current drive systems;
• project infrastructure: document management system, CAD system, QA;
• the same implementing agencies: F4E (Europe) and JAEA (Japan);
• interlinked construction time schedules so as to be ready for complementary operation.