Андрей Дапкюнас. Фото: МИД
Belarus hopes to “actively participate” in global processes to resolve international conflicts through the Peace Council established by U.S. President Donald Trump, Belarus’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Andrei Dapkiunas said at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.
He recalled that Belarus was among the first to respond to the U.S. leader’s initiative and signed a document on joining the Council and implementing the provisions of its charter.
According to him, Minsk views participation in the Peace Council as confirmation of its special role in promoting dialogue between states with different development models and value systems. The Belarusian representative said the country proceeds from the principle of the indivisibility of security and considers it unacceptable to ensure the security of some states at the expense of others.
“At the same time, Belarus believes that even in conditions of the deepest crisis of trust, direct and respectful dialogue is possible. However, dialogue is possible provided there is political will and an awareness of responsibility for the global consequences of the decisions being made. The Peace Council is precisely intended to institutionalize this logic of communication — the logic of conversation rather than diktat,” he said.
He described Trump’s initiative as timely amid fatigue from “confrontation, sanctions pressure and bloc-based confrontation.”
The Belarusian representative also criticized the current international security system and the functioning of international institutions. In Minsk’s assessment, existing mechanisms are experiencing a deep crisis, and many international coalitions are oriented not toward conflict resolution but toward escalation and military confrontation.
“It is important that the declared goal of the Peace Council’s work is not only to establish a lasting peace in the Middle East, but also to create a new paradigm for resolving conflicts on a global scale. This is precisely why, in deciding to participate in the Peace Council’s work, Belarus is looking to the future and hopes that this organization will expand its scope and powers far beyond the mandate initially proposed in the initiative. This will allow the country to actively participate in global processes of international conflict resolution, which will ultimately contribute to the swift construction of a new security architecture that Belarus has been actively promoting in recent years. Belarus’s decision to support this initiative and join the Peace Council cements a principled course toward dialogue, de-escalation and the search for political and diplomatic solutions,” Dapkiunas said.
According to him, none of the existing coalitions “envisages the creation of conditions for communication between partners whose views may differ significantly.”
“The uniqueness of the initiative to create the Peace Council lies in the fact that, for the first time in the past 50 years, it proposes the creation of an international organization uniting states that are far from unanimous on many issues, but are united in their support for peace throughout the world,” he said.
In conclusion, the diplomat called for giving new life to the Soviet-era slogan “Peace to the world,” the Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s press service reported.