The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus reported on the evening of 19 February that the official delegation of this state to the meeting of the Peace Council had not received visas to the United States.
“Visas for our delegation to the Peace Council meeting were not issued despite the fact that all documents were submitted on time and procedures were followed. Belarus informed the organisers that Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov would attend the event by the decision of the head of state. The invitation from the President of the United States was addressed to the Head of State of Belarus. “If even elementary formalities are not observed, what kind of ‘peace’ are we talking about?” reads the statement of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in the network X.
The first meeting of the Peace Council, created at the initiative of U.S. President Donald Trump, opened in Washington at the Donald Trump Peace Institute on the morning of 19 February. The event began with a speech by Trump himself. The American leader announced the allocation of more than $7 billion for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
The Peace Council meeting was attended by delegations from more than 20 countries. Among them were King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and other world leaders.
The Peace Council was originally conceived precisely as a body to govern the Gaza Strip after the war under Trump’s peace plan, but it has since become clear that the US president sees it as a new international body with much broader powers.