ATHENS -- Former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati boycotted an international medical conference in Tunisia because of Israeli participation, international Arab daily Al-Hayat reported on Saturday. The 36th International Conference on the History of Medicine ended in Tunis on Friday. A member of the Organizing Committee of the conference told Al-Hayat that Velayati had sent abstracts of his two papers which he was expected to deliver in the conference several months ago.

But Velayati boycotted the conference and did not send his papers when he came to learn that four Israeli doctors were taking part in the five-day medical congress. Dr. Velayati is a pediatrician by profession and now an advisor on foreign affairs to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. Velayati's two presentations were on nervous diseases and the other on history of traditional Islamic medicine in Iran. (IRNA)