ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accepted US President Donald Trump’s invite to join his Board of Peace for Gaza and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is set to attend the body’s inaugural meeting in Davos on Thursday.
Details: Fidan will represent Turkey as a board member during the Davos meeting, Erdogan told journalists at the Turkish Parliament on Wednesday.
The top Turkish diplomat will attend the signing ceremony of the board’s charter on Erdogan’s behalf, the Turkish Foreign Ministry clarified in a statement later Wednesday. Turkey’s decision to join the board came after a phone conversation between Erdogan and Trump late Tuesday, during which the two leaders discussed the Gaza ceasefire process along with other regional issues, according to the Turkish readout.
On Jan. 15, Fidan was tapped as a member of the Gaza Executive Board, a subsidiary body under the Board of Peace tasked with overseeing the Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction efforts, alongside senior US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Erdogan’s decision to send Fidan to Davos reflects the Turkish president’s long-running boycott of the World Economic Forum following his 2009 verbal confrontation with then-Israeli President Shimon Peres during a Davos panel on Gaza. Erdogan walked off the stage after demanding more speaking time, interrupting the moderator with “one minute.”
Erdogan has not attended the Davos forum since that incident, opting instead to delegate representation to senior officials.
Why it matters: The Board of Peace is a US-led international body announced by President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 as part of a UN-backed plan to oversee the establishment of an international stabilization force for Gaza, a proposed multinational force meant to supervise Israel’s phased withdrawal from the enclave and train vetted Palestinian police officers.
Trump has sent invitations to roughly 60 governments and heads of state.
Turkey’s invitation places it alongside Egypt and Qatar, the two countries that have served as the main mediators in the Gaza ceasefire process. Egypt formally accepted the invitation on Wednesday, according to Egyptian news outlets, while Qatar has yet to publicly respond.
Israel also joins: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also accepted the invitation to join the board, Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday in a post on X.
Israeli officials remain publicly opposed to the inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in post-war Gaza arrangements, arguing that their ties with Hamas would undermine Israel’s security interests and legitimize the group’s continued political influence in the enclave.
Netanyahu and other senior leaders repeatedly said there should be no Turkish or Qatari soldiers in the Gaza Strip, urging Washington to exclude them from oversight roles.
Global response: Beyond Egypt, Turkey and Israel, responses have varied widely across regions.
So far, several countries and leaders have publicly accepted, including the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bahrain, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Argentina and Belarus.
While Canada has signaled agreement “in principle,” China, Saudi Arabia, India and Ukraine have confirmed they received invitations but have not announced whether they will join.
France, Norway and Sweden, meanwhile, have publicly declined or said they will not take part under the current proposal, amid ongoing tensions between Washington and EU capitals over Trump’s bid to seize Greenland.
Italy has signaled reluctance to join due to constitutional concerns over overseas military or stabilization commitments. Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s attendance at the Davos summit remains unconfirmed, Italian news agency Ansa reported on Wednesday. Meloni is likely to skip the forum altogether, in part to avoid a potential meeting with Trump as Rome weighs constitutional and political concerns over the initiative, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
