Eyebrows have been raised over the invitations that U.S. President Donald Trump has extended, in particular, to the Presidents of Russia and China to join his Board of Peace on Gaza.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had stated on Jan. 19 that Putin had “received an invitation to join this Board of Peace,” but they were seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer. Then, when Trump was questioned whether it was true that he had invited President Vladimir Putin, Trump answered matter-of-factly: “Yeah, he has been invited.” Asked again, he said: “Yes. He’s one of the people. These are world leaders. And the answer is ‘yes.’”
Given Russia’s proximity and involvement with both Israel and Arab countries in the region, it would have been abnormal not to include Russia, but abnormal has become the new normal. So, independent of the merits of Trump’s initiative, his treatment of the invite as a normal matter has made news.
So far, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the leaders of Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Argentina have already accepted the offer to join. When a reporter told Trump that French President Emmanuel Macron had rejected the invite, Trump was offended. He stated that, if that were true, he could just threaten to impose a 200% tariff on wine and champagne from France, and he added: “Well, nobody wants him [Macron], because he is going to be out of office very soon.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun on Jan. 20 acknowledged that China had also been invited, but he did not specify whether Beijing would accept it. Rather, he emphasized that “cooperation between China and the U.S. benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both.” He added: “Over the past year, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but have maintained overall dynamic stability.”
Also on Jan. 20, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at his annual press summary, concluded his opening presentation by stating: “We are also convinced that a lasting settlement in the Middle East requires the final implementation of the UN decisions regarding the creation of a Palestinian state. I would stress that this criterion remains entirely relevant in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s current, high-profile initiative to establish a ‘Board of Peace.’”
Immediately afterwards, in his answer to the first press question, Lavrov’s reply addressed the problematic aspect of a Middle East solution that is crafted to work around the UN format: “I have already said that, for many years, the UN Charter has remained a universally recognized benchmark for actions across many areas for different states, when it was violated ... [and] nobody questioned the fact that the council was the central body to discuss all issues pertaining to international peace and security.” So, there are issues that need to be dealt with—or in Peskov’s language, “nuances” that need to be clarified—regarding the attempt to fashion a “Board of Peace.”
