The UK will not take part in US President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ signing ceremony today because of “concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace”, according to British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump will host a signing ceremony for his controversial new initiative in Davos.<\/p>\n
According to the White House, around 35 countries – including Israel, Turkey, Hungary and Egypt – have so far committed to joining the forum, which is aimed at resolving international conflicts.<\/p>\n
Others have raised concerns that it may harm the work of the United Nations, while Ireland is still considering its response.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has described his ‘Board of Peace’ as the “most prestigious board ever assembled at any time, any place”.<\/p>\n
But some world leaders appear increasingly cautious about his new initiative for resolving international conflicts – which comes with a $1 billion (\u20ac855 million) fee for permanent membership.<\/p>\n
Only one EU nation has so far said yes: Hungary, which is run by Mr Trump’s close ally Viktor Orban.<\/p>\n
Another ally, Giorgia Meloni of Italy has said she would not immediately sign the charter, signalling that doing so would create legal risks.<\/p>\n
The leaders of France, Sweden, Norway and Slovenia have also said they will not join at this point, with some diplomats citing concerns it may supplant the UN.<\/p>\n
Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, perhaps the most controversial invitee, has said he is still considering the proposal, indicating he would be prepared to pay the $1 billion fee out of frozen Russian funds, a move that would likely be met with fierce resistance from Ukraine and its allies.<\/p>\n
It comes as Mr Putin said that he would meet today with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have been tasked with finding a solution to Russia’s nearly four-year-old war with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Mr Putin, quoted by Russian news agencies, said during a meeting of Russia’s Security Council that he would discuss the possible use of frozen Russian assets with the US envoys in connection with recovery work in regions affected by the war.<\/p>\n
“This possibility is also under discussion with representatives of the US administration,” Russian news agencies quoted him as \u2060saying.<\/p>\n
Mr Putin said he would also discuss use of the assets with Palestinian President Mahmoud \u2060Abbas, scheduled to meet with the Russian leader today.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is travelling to Davos for a meeting with Mr Trump, his advisor has said.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK will not take part in US President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ signing ceremony today because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-257786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}