BICOM

Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held secret talks in recent weeks in an effort to break the stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. The two reportedly met during Peres’s recent visit to London and exchanged messages through advisors, though the content of the talks remains undisclosed. Sources in the Israeli President’s Office refused to comment on the leaked meetings, though one unnamed official told Maariv that Peres was the only senior Israeli official who could open a channel of communication to the Palestinian president, but that the talks are unlikely to continue now that their existence has been exposed. Secret channels of communication between Israelis and Palestinians are not new and paved the way to the Oslo Agreement in 1993.

It has been widely reported that President Peres expressed his frustration at the diplomatic impasse between Israel and the Palestinians and was deeply concerned by the prospects of a UN General Assembly vote in September that would recognise a Palestinian state. At the same time, Peres was reportedly surprised by the agreement signed between Hamas and Fatah shortly after his meeting with the Palestinian president.