"It is better to bet on a Middle East without nuclear weapons in order to consolidate peace," Fassi Fihri told the press on the sidelines of the International nuclear safety summit, held in Washington on April 12-13.

    The fact that a single country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons creates not only frustration in this region, but also represents a violation of international ethics and laws, he said.

    Morocco advocates "an African continent devoid of nuclear weapons," the Minister said, adding that the Kingdom participates in this international summit with the concern to promote a better management of nuclear technology.

    Fassi Fihri underlined by the same occasion the "imprescriptible" right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

    Warning of the surge of all sorts of trafficking in the Sahel and West African region, the Minister noted the greater threat to stability in the region posed by the overlapping between trafficking networks and terrorist groups.

    In this regard, he lamented that only 40% of missing nuclear material has been found and that International Nuclear Agency (AFNI) did not yet find the rest.

    "There is a real risk that the missing stocks fall into malicious hands," he said, stressing the need to protect "our region and the whole Arab and Muslim world from nuclear terrorism."

    Fassi Fihri also hailed the signing, on Thursday, in Prague of a protocol to reduce stocks of strategic weapons between the US and Russia.

    HM King Mohammed VI is represented in the summit by Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi who leads a Moroccan delegation including Energy, Mining, water and environment Minister Amina Benkhadra.

     The 47-nation summit is hosted by US President Barack Obama with the aim to ponder on the means to prevent nuclear terrorism.