NEW DELHI: After a public embrace of Israel as a strategic partner, IndianPrime Minister Narendra Modi is heading to the Palestinian territories andthe Gulf on Friday to bolster long-standing political and economic ties.
India was one of the earliest champions of the Palestinian cause but inrecent years turned to Israel for high-tech military equipment andanti-terrorism cooperation.
Under Modi, whose nationalist party sees Israel as a natural ally againstextremism, ties have flourished. Modi made the first trip to Israel by anIndian prime minister last year followed by Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyanu’s visit to India last month.
But Indian officials said India continued to support the Palestinian causeand that Modi’s visit is aimed at helping build up the Palestinians’capacity in the health, information technology and education areas.
“We have de-hyphenated our relations with Palestine and Israel and now wesee them both as mutually independent and exclusive and as part of thispolicy the prime minister is undertaking this visit,” B. Bala Bhaskar, ajoint secretary in the Indian foreign ministry, said.
The two sides are building a India-Palestinian technology park in Ramallah,the Palestinians’ seat of government, which will develop IT expertise andgenerate employment.
Modi is due to arrive in Jordan later on Friday and travel to Ramallah, inthe Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Saturday. During his visit to Israellast year, he did not travel to the Palestinian headquarters as is usuallythe case with visiting leaders.
“Looking forward to my discussions with President Mahmoud Abbas andreaffirming our support for the Palestinian people and the development ofPalestine,” Modi said in a Twitter post.
India was among more than 120 countries to vote in favor of a resolution inDecember calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition ofJerusalem as Israel’s capital.
But the scale of India’s security and commercial ties with Israel dwarfsthe engagement with the Palestinians. Israel is among India’s top threearms suppliers, doing business worth millions of dollars each year.
Modi and Netanyahu are now pushing for cooperation in agriculture, energyand cybersecurity in addition to defense.
Modi will also travel to the United Arab Emirates, from where India getshalf of its oil, and to Oman, with which India’s navy has built closesecurity ties.
The Gulf is home to nine million Indians who remit $35 billion home eachyear, sustaining millions of families. The UAE committed an investment of$75 billion in India when Modi visited in 2015 and the two sides will belooking to advance that goal, the foreign ministry said.