Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán revealed on Saturday that he will attend the first Board of Peace meeting in Washington, D.C., later this month.
The Board of Peace was created by President Donald Trump to help transition Gaza out of terrorism and decay into democracy and revitalization. A host of world leaders have been invited to sit on the panel and oversee rebuilding efforts, even as phase two of the Gaza peace deal brokered by Trump last October continues to face significant challenges, including pushing Hamas terrorists who have controlled the area to demilitarize.
“I got an invitation: two weeks from now we will meet again [with Trump] in Washington, because the Board of Peace, the peace body, will have an inaugural meeting,” Orbán said this week, saying he received the invitation on Friday.
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The U.S. plans to hold the first working meeting of the Board of Peace, which is chaired by Trump, on February 19 in Washington, D.C., according to Axios. It is expected to be held at the U.S. Institute of Peace, help mobilize international funding for Gaza’s reconstruction, and advance phase two of the peace deal.
In January, the Trump administration began sending out invitations to dozens of world leaders to join the Board of Peace, which will work in tandem with the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG, a transitional technocratic committee tasked with ensuring Hamas disarms and Israel withdraws from Gaza, along with other elements of phase two.
Permanent members must pay $1 billion to join the Board of Peace. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Australia, Canada, China, Russia, the European Commission, and key Middle East players were among those invited. Orbán was the first to accept as a founding member and joined the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace’s charter on Jan. 22, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
On Thursday, Trump formally backed Orban’s bid for reelection, ahead of the country’s April 12 election. Relations between Hungary and the U.S. “have reached new heights of cooperation and spectacular achievement,” Trump said, crediting the positive change “largely” to Orbán.
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Most key European players have veered away from publicly backing Trump’s novel board, but it has gained members among Middle Eastern countries viewed as critical to peace negotiations, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Jordan. Around 27 countries have joined the board thus far.
Israel, which had long fought against Hamas in Gaza before a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last fall brought the war to a halt, has accepted Trump’s invitation to join the peace board, but still hasn’t signed the charter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to sit down with Trump at the White House next week, the day before the board’s inaugural meeting. Should he participate in the board meeting, it appears that it will be his first public meeting with Arab and Muslim leaders since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
