The Egyptian president appears to have written to his Israeli counterpart expressing his desire to get the peace negotiations back on track.

Mohammed Morsi, of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood Party, was elected as Egypt's new leader at the end of June.

Soon after his victory Israel's Shimon Peres reached out to Mr Morsi with a letter that said peace was "the victory of both sides" and urged him to hold together the peace treaty between the two countries. He wrote to him again at the start of Ramadan with a holiday greeting.

In a letter dated July 15, that is understood to be genuine, Mr Morsi told Mr Peres: "It was with deep thanks that I received your congratulations."

He added: "I take this opportunity to reiterate that I am looking forward to exerting our best efforts to getting the Middle East peace process back to its right track, in order to achieve security and stability for peoples of the region including [the] Israeli people."