Vienna — Morocco, which is fully committed to the principle that the primary responsibility for nuclear safety rests entirely with States, has continued to strengthen its legal arsenal in the field of nuclear and radiological safety and security, said Morocco’s Permanent Representative in Vienna Azzeddine Farhane.
Speaking on the occasion of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), held from 6 to 10 March, Farhane noted that as part of the modernization of the regulatory framework for nuclear safety and security and radiological Morocco, the Kingdom has accelerated, during the year 2022, the process of revising regulatory texts.
As such, 12 regulatory texts have been reviewed, contributing to the modernization of the national regulatory framework, he said, under the “agenda item 2: nuclear and radiological safety” of the Comprehensive Nuclear Safety Report 2023.
He recalled that, in order to optimize the regulations in force, Morocco contributed to the first meeting of the initiative for harmonization and standardization of approaches to regulatory control of small modular reactors (SMR), held in Vienna on 23 and 24 June 2022.
Similarly, Morocco continues to work to maintain its capacity to respond to emergencies, said Farhane, noting in this regard that the Kingdom hosted, from October 23 to November 2, 2022 in Rabat, the review mission of emergency preparedness, the IAEA.
This mission was conducted by the Agency at the request of the Moroccan authorities to assess the capabilities of Morocco and its level of preparedness for nuclear or radiological emergencies, and this in accordance with the safety standards of the Agency, he said.
In addition, the Kingdom participated, virtually, on November 16, 2020, in an international exercise of the IAEA entitled “ConvEx-2a”, whose objective is to test the specific arrangements for transnational nuclear or radiological emergencies, said the diplomat.
He also welcomed the signing, on the sidelines of the 66th General Conference of the IAEA, of a declaration between Morocco and the United States on “preparedness and response in nuclear emergencies”.
This joint declaration between the two countries highlights Morocco’s substantial contribution to nuclear emergency preparedness, including as chair of the “Response and Mitigation” working group of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and coordinator of the “GICNT Implementation and Assessment” group for 2019-2021, he explained.
At the regional level, the Kingdom has hosted several activities aimed at enhancing the capacity of States Parties to intervene in the event of nuclear or radiological emergencies, Farhane continued.
