The first meeting of the Peace Council is scheduled for February 19 in Washington, Axios reported on February 6.
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that “there is no such trip in the president's schedule.”
Russian propagandists did not specify that the head of the Kremlin does not risk traveling abroad because of the warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.
Lukashenko's press secretary Natalya Eismont cited a late invitation as the reasons for the politician's refusal to go to the United States and allegedly “the president's work schedule for this period was already planned.”
“We would love to visit the United States, but there are issues that cannot be postponed,” Vedomosti quotes her as saying.
According to Eismont, Belarus will be represented at the meeting of the Peace Council by Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov.
The publication recalled that the last time Lukashenko visited the United States was in 2015, when he spoke at the UN General Assembly.
Context
On January 22, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump signed a document establishing the Peace Council. His The charter was signed by about 20 countries, including Hungary and Bulgaria among EU members.
Some countries rejected Trump's invitation, in particular – France.
Trump invited countries wishing to have a permanent seat on the Gaza Peace Council to contribute at least $1 billion, Bloomberg reported. Critics fear that the US president is trying to create an alternative to the UN and concentrate control over finances and decisions in one hand.
Putin agreed to transfer such an amount from Russian funds frozen in the West, but the United States did not react to this idea; they complained in Moscow.
