Former US President Jimmy Carter says the Hamas organization is willing to transfer a letter from kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit to his family in Israel .
Carter said in an interview to the al-Jazeera network on Friday evening that Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal agreed to deliver the letter during his latest meeting with the former American president.
I recently transferred a letter from Shalit's family to him and received consent to transfer a letter from him back to his father, said Carter.
The former president has already mediated between Israel and Hamas in the past. In June 2008, Carter transferred a third letter from Gilad Shalit to his parents. A year later, he transferred a letter from Shalit's parents to Hamas.
Gilad Shalit was last seen in October 2009, when Hamas handed over to Israel a two-minute clip showing the kidnapped soldier addressing his parents, in exchange for 20 female Palestinian prisoners. Shalit appeared to be in good health in the video.
The German-mediated talks for the kidnapped soldier's release were resumed recently. The London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported that the German mediator in the Shalit prisoner-swap deal met in September with a Hamas commander jailed in Israel, Sheikh Hassan Yousef.
According to a report in Saudi newspaper al-Madina, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer ruling out the possibility of releasing former Fatah Secretary-General Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison, in exchange for the captive soldier.