The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Monday that Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, before giving its response.
The claim of an invitation comes with Putin showing no signs of ending his invasion of Ukraine, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and Russian troops have carried out atrocities against civilians. The Russian president has repeatedly rejected proposals of ceasefire along the current frontlines.
The Kremlin also said on Monday that Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev would be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos this week and would meet members of the US delegation there. It is unclear whether those meetings will involve discussions of the Gaza board.
The invitation to Putin, which has yet to be confirmed by Washington, raises more questions about the intended agenda for the board. It was originally part of Trump’s ceasefire proposals for the Gaza war, and was supposed to oversee the transition to a lasting peace in the territory and supervise the work of a committee of Palestinian experts, also announced last week, who would take care of the day-to-day running of Gaza. The vaguely described scheme was endorsed in a UN security council resolution in November.
The first appointments to the board, announced on Friday, included Trump himself as chair, the former British prime minister Tony Blair and the current US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Also appointed were Trump’s troubleshooting envoy, the property developer Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga.$BTC
