Israeli foreign minister plans to visit Qatar

JERUSALEM, Oct 26 (Reuters) Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hopes to visit Qatar next week to attend a UN meeting, in what would be the first visit by an Israeli leader to the Gulf state in a decade, she said today.

Israel has some commercial ties with Qatar, but no formal diplomatic relations. Israeli officials said Qatar had invited Livni to attend a United Nations convention on democracy. They said the invitation had not yet been accepted formally.

''I'm thinking positively about going to Qatar at the beginning of next week,'' Livni told reporters after meeting European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana. ''I think that it is important.'' Israel has been trying to court what it sees as moderate Arab countries as potential allies against Iran's nuclear programme and in fighting Islamist militants.

But there is little sign of popular sympathy for Israel in the region after its battles with Palestinian militants and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

The last senior Israeli to visit Qatar was then prime minister Shimon Peres, who opened a trade office in 1996.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Livni could use the visit to Qatar to expand dialogue with the whole Arab world and would deliver a message that Israel wants to advance on a long stalled ''road map'' for peace with the Palestinians.

''Ultimately, everyone who wants to see peace in the West Asia must support an extended dialogue between Israel and her Arab neighbours,'' Regev said.

He said Livni would stress concerns about an Iranian nuclear programme that Israel fears would be used to build an atom bomb.

Tehran says the programme is only for energy. Israel is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal.

As well as being closer to Israel than most of the states in the region, Qatar also has friendly ties with the governing Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which is dedicated to destroying the Jewish state.

That has raised suggestions of a possible Qatari role in trying to secure the release of an Israeli soldier who was captured in June by Palestinian militants, including Hamas gunmen. Regev did not comment on that possibility.

Qatar has also tried, so far unsuccessfully, to broker a deal between Hamas and moderate President Mahmoud Abbas to end an increasingly violent power struggle.

Qatar and several other Arab states ended an economic ban on Israel after it signed interim peace accords with the Palestinians in 1993, but relations worsened after a Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000.

The only Arab neighbours with which Israel has full ties are Egypt and Jordan.

REUTERS DKB BD1826