Israel's veteran politician Shimon Peres is expected to formally announce his decision on Wednesday to leave the center-left Labor Party after 61 years in it, local newspaper Jerusalem Post said.

The paper said Peres is expected to announce that he has accepted an offer from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to serve as a minister in charge of peace talks with the Palestinians and developing Negev and Galilee.

Earlier reports in the paper quoted Sharon's aides as saying that Peres has decided to join Kadima, Sharon's newly-formed centrist party, and he will announce the deal after he returns from a trip in Barcelona, Spain.

Peres told reporters in Barcelona Monday night that "My goal is to make peace and it doesn't matter with which party."

Peres, a former prime minister and a Nobel peace laureate, served as Israel's deputy prime minister before Amir Peretz, the newly-elected Labor party leader, withdrew the party from Sharon's coalition government in mid-November.

Peretz, a trade union chief, defeated Peres unexpectedly in the Nov. 7 Labor party elections on a platform of reviving peace talks with the Palestinians, bringing Labor out of the coalition government and opposing more cuts on social welfare.

Peres led the Labor into Sharon's Likud-dominated coalition government last January to push forward Sharon's disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip.

Under the plan, Israel completed the withdrawal of soldiers and some 8,500 settlers from all 21 settlements in Gaza in mid- September, a move drawing vehement condemnation from some rightist Likud members who vowed to punish Sharon for what they deemed capitulation to Palestinian violence.

Some analysts said Peres' anger at Peretz for the latter's breaking his promise not to run against him for the Labor leadership was the key reason behind Peres' departure.

Former Labor parliament member Dalia Itzik, who joined Sharon's Kadima on Monday, said she had warned Peres of a hostile takeover of Labor by Peretz but the warning went unheeded by Peres.

Itzik said she joined Kadima, meaning forward in Hebrew, because she considers herself a centrist and that Labor under Peretz is moving to the extreme left.

Sharon quit the right-wing Likud party he co-founded three decades ago on Nov. 21 to form the Kadima party and decided to lead it into the national elections set on March 28, 2006, which were advanced from November 2006 after Labor quit the coalition government.

Source: Xinhua