What to know about Trump’s 'board of peace'
A billion-dollar permanent membership fee and a mandate that seems to extend beyond Gaza were some of the details listed in a draft charter for the board.
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SINGAPORE: A billion-dollar permanent membership fee and a mission to secure peace in conflict areas - these were some of the details listed in a draft charter for US President Donald Trump’s “board of peace”.
The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but the charter does not appear to limit its role to the occupied Palestinian territory.
What will this new organisation do, and who has been invited?
HOW IT WILL WORK
According to the draft charter, the board of peace is an international organisation seeking to “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.
It will "undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law", it added.
The board will be chaired by Trump, who will also serve separately as an inaugural representative of the US.
According to the rights of the chairman listed on the document, he will have “exclusive authority to create, modify or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfil the board of peace's mission”.
He will also pick members of an executive board to be "leaders of global stature" who will serve two-year terms - subject to removal by the chairman.
The White House has already announced the founding executive board for the organisation.
Its members include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair.
As chairman, Trump may also adopt resolutions or other directives on the board's behalf, the draft charter stated.
He can only be replaced in the case of "voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity".
The board will also include member states, but they have to be invited by the US president.
They will be represented by their head of state or government, and each member will serve a term of up to three years.
But "the three-year membership term shall not apply to member states that contribute more than US$1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the board of peace within the first year of the charter's entry into force", said the draft document.
The board will hold voting meetings at least annually, with each member state entitled to one vote.
But while all decisions require "a majority of member states present and voting", they will also be "subject to the approval of the chairman, who may also cast a vote in his capacity as chairman in the event of a tie", said the charter.
WHO’S IN AND WHO HAS BEEN INVITED
Besides the members of the founding executive board, Trump has also appointed two senior advisers for the organisation.
The two men - Abraham Accords Peace Institute CEO Aryeh Lightstone and Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition - will lead the board's day-to-day strategy and operation.
Several countries and world leaders have also said they received invitations.
They include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Argentina's President Javier Milei.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday (Jan 20) that it also received an invitation and is currently assessing it.
Other invited countries include: Israel, China, India, Pakistan, Germany, France, Italy, Jordan, Brazil, Paraguay, Hungary, Romania, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Greece, Morocco, Slovenia and Poland.
RESPONSE TO INVITATIONS
The initial reaction from France and Canada - two of America's key allies - was lukewarm.
A Canadian government source said Ottawa will not pay to be on the board, and has not got a request to pay, after Carney indicated he would accept the board’s invitation.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday that the country could not accept the invitation at this stage, noting that the board's charter goes beyond the scope of rebuilding and running post-war Gaza endorsed by the United Nations.
He added that it is "incompatible with France's international commitments and in particular its membership in the UN, which obviously cannot be called into question under any circumstances".
France is one of the five veto-wielding, permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with the US, China, Russia and Britain.
A source close to President Emmanuel Macron also told Reuters on Monday that France intends to decline the invitation to join the initiative at this stage.
However, the press secretaries for Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said they would join the organisation.
CONCERNS ABOUT SIDELINING MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS
The inclusion of a "charter" in the membership invitation letter stoked concerns that it could undermine the work of the United Nations.
According to a senior UN official, the United Nations was the only institution with the moral and legal ability to bring together every nation, big or small.
"And if we question that ... we fall back and very, very, dark times," Annalena Baerbock, president of the United Nations General Assembly, told Sky News, adding that it was up to individual states to decide what to do.
Paul Williams, professor of international affairs at George Washington University, told AFP that the offer of permanent membership for US$1 billion showed Trump is "trying to turn it into a pay-to-play alternative to the UN Security Council but where Trump alone exercises veto power".
The board could be intended to replace existing multilateral institutions that the Trump administration is hostile to, said Khaled Elgindy, a senior research fellow at American think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“There is a sense coming mainly from the administration that they would like to broaden the reach of the board of peace and even talking about replacing the current UN system,” he said.
“It's clear that Gaza might be the beginning, but it isn't the end of the board of peace as far as the Trump administration is concerned," he added.
“That secondary role of replacing existing multilateral institutions might even be more of a priority than its primary function in Gaza for this administration, since Gaza doesn't really have any real strategic value for Donald Trump."
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