SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean functionaries on Wednesday sought to attenuate the impact of a Czech tribunal's interlocutory ruling halting a proposed $18 billion undertaking wherein South Korea was slated to construct two nuclear reactors within the Central European nation,characterizing the development as a transient impediment and voicing unwavering certitude that the contractual arrangement would ultimately culminate in fruition.

The South Korean consortium, under the aegis of the state-operated Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, had anticipated concluding the contractual agreement this week with a subsidiary of CEZ, the preeminent electricity provider in the Czech Republic; however, a supervening injunction by a Czech court has currently incapacitated CEZ from executing the contract pending judicial review of a grievance lodged by the French conglomerate EDF, whose tender was unsuccessful vis-à-vis the South Korean proposal.

South Korean Industry Minister Ahn Dukgeun informed journalists in Prague that the judicial ruling would merely postpone the formal contractual execution, and that all corollary processes would continue as programmed, contingent upon the ultimate realisation of the transaction. He opined that the Czech government evidently did not foresee the court's interlocutory injunction on the accord, and that CEZ intends to lodge an appeal.

The timeline for the Czech Supreme Administrative Court's adjudication on the aforementioned appeal remains indeterminate.

The Czech government seemed to dismiss the gravity of EDF’s assertions, proceeding with the prearranged signing ceremony, according to Ahn, who suggested that the government's assessment appeared incongruous with the court's verdict.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala affirmed Wednesday his government’s deference to the court’s determination, prior to appending: “I am sanguine that the judiciary and the tribunal apprehend the pivotal significance of this ruling and its ramification for the security of the Czech Republic and our sovereign interests.”

Lee Ju-Ho, ad interim President of South Korea, posited that Seoul would engage in stringent liaison with its Czech counterpart to facilitate the expeditious conclusion of the accord.

In July, CEZ designated KHNP as the favoured tenderer, bypassing EDF, for the construction of two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors at the Dukovany facility; EDF subsequently lodged a judicial protest last week following the Czech Republic's antitrust authority's dismissal of its petition regarding the tendering methodology.

Prior to his ouster last month, precipitated by a calamitous martial law imposition in December, former conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had vowed to invigorate the nation's nuclear power exports, contending their performance had been undermined by the preceding liberal administration's initiative to curtail domestic dependence on nuclear energy. Yoon's government had articulated a strategic objective of facilitating the export of ten nuclear power reactors by the end of the current decade.