Lithuanian president says no invitation received to US Board of Peace meeting

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said Monday that he has not received an invitation to this week’s meeting of the Board of Peace in the United States.

Nausėda said the meeting is expected to focus on the situation in the Gaza Strip.

“We have not received an official invitation. As far as we know, the upcoming meeting will be devoted to the Gaza Strip issue. We have always supported and will continue to support efforts to achieve not only peace, but sustainable peace, and to address humanitarian problems that have reached a truly horrific scale there,” he told reporters.

The so-called Board of Peace, chaired by US President Donald Trump, was initially designed to oversee a Gaza truce and reconstruction. Its mandate has since broadened to include resolving a range of international conflicts, prompting concerns that the US president aims to create a body that could rival the United Nations.

Lithuania is currently focused on Ukraine as Russia’s war continues.

The United States has asked countries to pay $1 billion for a permanent seat on the Board of Peace. Representatives from countries such as Russia and Belarus have also been invited.

For these and other reasons, many European countries are sceptical about participating. Nausėda said Lithuania has not yet decided whether it will join the format in the future, adding that a joint regional position is being coordinated.

The European Union has said it will attend the Board of Peace’s founding meeting but does not plan to join as a member.

“We first want to see what the future mandate of the Board of Peace will be and how broad and deep the issues discussed there will be. At this stage, we cannot say that we will not join at some point later. But at this immediate stage, no,” Nausėda said.

“As for decisions by individual countries to participate, that is, of course, a matter of domestic policy. The European Union, I believe, will also make a final decision in the future, once the vision of the Board of Peace itself, the issues on its agenda, and their relevance both for Lithuania and for the European Union become much clearer,” he added.

Trump unveiled the Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. Its founding charter has so far been signed by about 19 countries.