Israel's President Shimon Peres told Jewish media Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked a secretly negotiated 2011 peace agreement with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, according to Agence France Presse.
Peres allegedly negotiated the secret peace agreement in Jordan with Abbas, but the proposed draft was rejected by Netanyahu and his right-wing government.
"We had gone through all of the points and the agreement [with Abbas] was ready," Peres told Israel's Channel Two television in an interview Tuesday.
"Netanyahu told me to wait a few days because he thought that Tony Blair could get a better offer. The days passed and there was no better offer," Peres said, in reference to former British prime minister and current envoy of the Middle East peacemaking quartet of the European Union, Russia, the UN and the U.S.
Abbas has previously commented on the secret talks to the public in August 2011 during a meeting with his Fatah leadership in which he, too, blamed Netanyahu in part for the talks' stalemate.
"After the first four meetings, a fifth meeting was planned in Amman but Shimon Peres made his excuses and told me: 'I'm sorry but the government doesn't accept what we have negotiated and there's nothing more I can do'," he said.
Peres is set to retire from his largely ceremonial post next month as he reaches the age of 90.
