DOHA, April 13: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni arrived in Qatar on Sunday to address a forum on democracy and meet leaders of the gas-rich Gulf state, a source at the emirate’s international airport said.

Livni was due to address the Doha Forum on Democracy, Development and Free Trade on Monday during a session on international dialogue and international peace, but no Arab participant was listed among the speakers at the session, according to the programme released by the organisers.

Although Qatar has political contacts with Israel and hosts a commercial interests office, Livni’s presence at the three-day forum is a rare event in the Arab world and comes amid an Israeli blockade of the

Hamas-run Gaza Strip and persistent violence between the two sides.

Other Palestinian figures attending the forum include Jawad Naji, an adviser to Abbas’s prime minister Salam Fayyad, and Mustafa Barghuti, secretary general of a group called the Palestinian National Initiative.—AFP