•President Donald Trump and King Mohammed VI
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has accepted US President Donald Trump’s invitation to join his “Board of Peace” as a founding member, the Moroccan foreign ministry said yesterday.
“Welcoming President Donald Trump’s commitment and vision to promoting peace,” the monarch “has graciously accepted this invitation”, the ministry said in a statement published by MAP news agency, adding the country would “ratify the charter establishing this board”.
The US-led initiative aims to “contribute to peace efforts in the Middle East and adopt a new approach to resolving conflicts around the world”, it said.
The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but its charter does not appear to limit its role to the Palestinian territory.
The board’s charter, seen by our correspondent, says that member countries — represented on the board by their head of state or government — would be allowed to join for three years or longer if they paid more than $1 billion within the first year, reports AFP.
The White House has asked various world leaders to sit on the board, chaired by Trump himself, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The initial reaction from two key allies, France and Canada, was lukewarm.
Others who have received invitations to join the new board, such as Putin, have not yet announced whether they will accept.
