Ex-US President Jimmy Carter says Netanyahu 'never believed in two-state solution for Israel, Palestine'

While wrapping up his three-day mission to Israel and the West Bank, former United States President Jimmy Carter has said that the prospects for renewed peace talks were so distant that he did not even discuss the matter with the Palestinian leadership.

Carter also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "does not now and has never sincerely believed in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine," reported The Independent.

On the final day of his reelection campaign in March, Netanyahu had gone on record to say that there will not be a separate Palestinian state as long as he served as the prime minister. The statement had stunned Washington.

However, after securing a victory in the elections, Netanyahu sought to amend his remarks, explaining that the time was not right and that the Middle East was too dangerous for Israel to withdraw from the areas that the Palestinians wanted for a future state. But the White House brushed them aside, with President Barack Obama saying that Washington would "take him at his word when he said that it wouldn't happen during his prime ministership.