US President Donald Trump thanked Alexander Lukashenko for the release of political prisoners in Belarus and noted that the Belarusian authoritarian leader might attend the next meeting of the Peace Council.
In a post on his social media network Truth Social, Trump said that another 250 Belarusian political prisoners had been freed this month following talks between his special envoy John Cole and Lukashenko.
“This brings the total number of prisoners that President Lukashenko graciously released from last May to over 500. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the President for this and look forward to meeting him at the next Peace Council meeting,” Donald Trump wrote.
Earlier, Trump had invited Lukashenko to attend the first meeting of the Peace Council, which was held on 19 February in Washington. But then, according to Natalia Eismont, Lukashenko’s press secretary, he declined because of his already packed work schedule and “possible logistical difficulties that may arise due to illegal sanctions, primarily from the European Union.”
Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov was supposed to go to the first meeting of the Peace Council leaders, but he didn’t get a visa.
On 27 March, Natalia Eismont said that Lukashenka might attend the next meeting of the Peace Council, recently created at the initiative of US President Donald Trump.
“If the meeting takes place this year, and if it is acceptable to the Belarusian side, we will definitely attend this summit,” she said.
The Trump-initiated Peace Council was originally conceived as a body to govern the Gaza Strip after the war, but it later became clear that the US president sees it as a new international body with much broader powers.
On 22 January, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump signed the Peace Council Charter. He himself became its chairman, and for lifetime membership in the Council countries are invited to contribute one billion dollars each. At the signing ceremony, Trump was joined by the leaders of other countries that have joined the Council, mainly from the Middle East and South America, as well as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.