Putin invited to join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza, Kremlin says
By Ivana Kottasová, Anna Chernova, CNN
(CNN) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the committee that will oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, his spokesman said Monday.
Speaking to reporters during a regular media briefing, Dmitry Peskov said: “President Putin also received through diplomatic channels an invitation to join this Board of Peace.”
He said the Kremlin is now reviewing the invitation and “hoping to get more details from the US side.”
CNN has asked the White House for comment.
Later Monday, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said President Alexander Lukashenko also received an invitation to join the board.
The ministry’s press service said Minsk “highly appreciates that the American side sees Belarus — and this is clearly stated in the text of the address — as a country ready to take on the noble responsibility of building a lasting peace and leading by example, investing in a secure and prosperous future for future generations.”
Lukashenko is Putin’s closest ally and has been described as Europe’s last dictator.
The establishment of the board, chaired by Trump, is a key step in the United Nations-backed American plan to demilitarize and rebuild Gaza, which was ravaged by two years of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group.
However, signs of discontent have already started to appear. Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee warned in a statement Sunday that the body proposed by Trump “would have a mandate wider than the implementation of the Gaza Peace Plan.”
“The United Nations has a unique mandate to maintain international peace and security, and the legitimacy to bring nations together to find common solutions to shared challenges. While it may be imperfect, the UN and the primacy of international law is more important now than ever,” she said.
‘Greatest Board ever’
Described by Trump as the “the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled,” the committee will include former British prime minister Tony Blair, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump has also invited Israel to join the board as a founding member state, a senior Israeli official told CNN on Monday. According to the official, the invitation was extended to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or another Israeli representative on his behalf.
It is unclear how many invitations have been sent out. Information about which countries and global leaders have been asked to join has been coming from the individual states, rather than the White House.
One of the invitations was sent to French President Emmanuel Macron, but France has decided not to take part, Pascal Confavreux, a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told CNN on Monday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Argentine President Javier Milei, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also received invitations to join, according to statements from them or their offices. The US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also invited to join.
Some of the leaders, including Orbán, have shared the invitation letters publicly. They show that, while Trump addressed the letters personally to the leaders, he was inviting their country to join the board as a “founding state.”
Members of the committee will receive a permanent seat if they pay $1 billion, according to a US official. While there is no requirement to contribute funds to the board, the official told CNN, members who do not make the $1 billion payment will have a three-year term.
All funds raised will go toward rebuilding Gaza, the official said, adding that “there will not be exorbitant salaries and massive administrative bloat that plagues many other international organizations.”
Return to global stage
Putin’s appointment to the board would mark an extraordinary return to the global stage for the Russian leader, who has been mostly shunned from international cooperation projects since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Kremlin’s involvement in the conflict between Israel and Hamas has been limited, although it did offer to mediate soon after the war started, touting its ties to both Israel and Hamas.
Unlike many Western countries, Russia does not officially consider Hamas to be a terrorist group. Senior Hamas leaders visited Moscow just weeks after the militants launched the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, even though at least 20 Russian citizens were killed or kidnapped in the assault.
In 2024, Palestinian factions, some of which had been at odds for almost two decades, met in Moscow. The Russian state news agency TASS reported earlier this month that the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was set to visit Russia later this week.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Tal Shalev and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
