Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accepted US President Donald Trump’s invitation to join the Gaza Board of Peace, which would oversee the transition from Hamas rule in the strip. Other invitees include Russia, Hungary, and Belarus.
On Tuesday morning, Pashinyan’s spokesperson, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, announced that Pashinyan had accepted Trump’s invitation to join the board ‘with pleasure and a sense of responsibility, reaffirming Armenia’s commitment to promoting peace’.
Baghdasaryan additionally shared Trump’s letter, which invited Pashinyan to join him in a ‘critically Historic and Magnificent effort to solidify Peace in the Middle East and, at the same time, to embark on a bold new approach to resolving Global Conflict [sic]!’
In the letter, Trump described the Board of Peace as being the ‘most impressive and consequential Board ever assembled, which will be established as a new International Organisation and Transitional Governing Administration’.
He continued by saying that the board would bring together a ‘distinguished group of nations ready to shoulder the noble responsibility of building LASTING PEACE [sic]’.
Trump concluded by inviting Armenia to join as a founding member of the board, as a ‘one of a kind’ opportunity, adding that ‘there has never been anything like it!’
A number of world leaders and their states had already been invited by Trump to join the board. Countries that have already accepted his invitation include Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Paraguay, and Hungary.
Others that have yet to accept include Russia, Belarus, Turkey, the UK, and the EU as a bloc.
It is yet unclear whether Azerbaijan was invited to join the board; however, in early January, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced that his country does not intend to send a peacekeeping force to Gaza. His announcement followed earlier reports suggesting that Azerbaijan was being eyed for handling a ‘stabilisation force’ in the strip following a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
According to Qatar-based media outlet Al Jazeera, the draft charter of the board was sent to about 60 countries, with the Trump administration calling for members to contribute $1 billion in cash each if they want permanent membership in the structure.
It is unclear whether Armenia, as a ‘founding member’ of the board, would retain full membership in the future.
Explaining the structure of the board, Al Jazeera cited a White House statement as saying that a ‘Founding Executive Council’ would sit on top of the board’s hierarchy, which ‘holds the purse strings and sets the strategic vision’. The council would be chaired by Trump, and would also include a number of officials and executives with ties to Israel and the US — but no Palestinian or Arab figures.
Since the Washington Summit of August 2025, both Pashinyan and Aliyev have featured regularly in Trump’s messaging, with the latter touting his mediation of their peace deal as a success of his global peace policy. Trump has repeatedly framed his hosting of Pashinyan and Aliyev in Washington, which included the initialling, but not the signing of a peace treaty, as an example of one of the eight wars that he reportedly ended.
Aytan Farhadova
