NEW DELHI – Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is in India for a historic 6 daysvisit first by any Israeli Prime Minister in the last 15 years.
The visit is seen with close watch as it will take India and Israelstrategic and defence partnership to the new highs.
Israeli PM was earlier received with open arms at the New Delhi Airport byhis friend Narendra Modi who had arrived at the airport breaking all theprotocols.
After the official meetings he had a conversation with Raj Chengappa,India Today’s Group Editorial Director (Publishing), Israel’s PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu spelt out his agenda for this historic visit.
While the bonhomie and the friendship between both the leaders PrimeMinisters Narendra Modi and the Israeli Premier was visible from the momentthe latter landed on the Tarmac in New Delhi, Netanyahu emphasised that itis the “kindred” spirit between the two that makes this a very “specialrelationship”.
“I respect Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a great leader. I see him with akindred spirit because he is impatient to bring the future to his peopleand to change the world. In many ways, our partnership can do a lot ofthings”, he said in his interview.
The Israeli Prime Minister has come down to India with a huge businesscontingent to upgrade the economic cooperation between the two nations buthis emphasis has been innovation and technology.
In a massive outreach toward people centric policies, Prime MinisterNetanyahu is offering high-end technology in the agriculture and healthsector, including drones for farmers.
He said that it was unimaginable but true, “Drones for agriculture, can youimagine that. This is what Israel can do in the Indian farm. You put adrone in the sky, pick data information and you photograph the field andthen you direct the water to the level of the individual plant.”
Adding that India and Israel will get the right impetus and spur intechnological and economic cooperation by “having Free Trade Agreement(FTA) or moving up towards that direction. Israel’s changing rapidly. Weare creating industries out of thin air.”
On the more contentious issue of India’s vote against the US resolution atthe UN on Jerusalem, the Prime Minister didn’t mince any words. He didn’thide his disappointment but also added that it would not get in the way ofa “grand partnership.”
“I don’t think one vote affects the general trend and you can see it inmany other votes that we have had here. Naturally, I’m disappointed but Ithink this visit is a testament to the fact that our relationship is movingforward on so many fronts,” he said.
Israel and India through its diplomatic channels handled the decision onJerusalem by India, but it was the cancellation of the $ 500 million Spikeman-portable anti-tank missiles by India on January 2 that dealt a biggerblow to Tel Aviv.
While responding to the question on defence deals impacted by this decisionhe said, “I hope that this visit can help resolve this issue because Ithink there is a reasonable chance we can reach an equitable solution butwe will have to wait till the end of this visit. But our defencerelationship is quite significant and it encompasses many things.”
“I think the keyword is defence. We want to defend ourselves. We are notaggressive nations but very committed to making sure that no one can commitaggression against either one of us,” he added.
Speaking about protecting one another, he answered India Today’s questionson terror cooperation saying “intelligence” is the key to fightingterrorism and that Israel in the last few years averted 30 major terrorattacks.
With Moshe Holtzberg, who lost his parents in the Mumbai terror attack,accompanying the Israeli premier to Mumbai, Netanyahu used some tough wordsagainst Hafiz Saeed.
Israel has been a strong defence partner of India and both countries sharethe intelligence and counter terrorism experiences with each other.