WARSAW: The United States failed to issue visas for Belarusian officials to attend the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” despite inviting Belarus to join as a founding member, the country’s foreign ministry said Thursday.
In an angry statement, the Belarusian foreign ministry said it told the event’s organizers it would be represented by Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov at the meeting and had applied for the visas in advance.
“However, despite completing all the required procedures on our part, visas were not issued to our delegation,” the ministry said.
“This situation naturally raises the question: what kind of peace and what kind of consistency can we be talking about if even the basic formalities for our participation were not fulfilled by the organizers?“
The eastern European country, ruled for more than 30 years by President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, was one of only around two dozen that accepted invitations to join Trump’s board.
Few Western democracies that traditionally ally with the United States have joined.
Trump established the board last year to oversee a ceasefire his administration brokered to halt two years of devastating war in Gaza.
He has since suggested expanding its remit to solving conflicts worldwide, raising concerns it could undermine the United Nations’ traditional role.
Trump will wield veto power over the board and can remain its head even after leaving office.
Belarus says US failed to issue visas for ‘Board of Peace’ meeting
https://arab.news/pmt8a
Belarus says US failed to issue visas for ‘Board of Peace’ meeting
- “Despite completing all the required procedures on our part, visas were not issued to our delegation,” the ministry said
- The eastern European country was one of only around two dozen that accepted invitations
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
