Israel foreign minister to land here today, set to ink key deals

NEW DELHI: Ahead of a likely visit by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to India later this year, his foreign minister Eli Cohen will arrive in Delhi on Tuesday for a three-day visit.

India has seen several high-level visits from Israel in the past few months, including by Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and economy minister Nir Barkat, as the two sides look to finalise dates for the proposed visit of the Israeli PM.

In January, PM Narendra Modi had invited Netanyahu to visit India at an early date after the latter was sworn in as PM for the sixth time. Cohen, who will be accompanied by a business delegation, will review the India-Israel Strategic Partnership in a meeting with his counterpart S Jaishankar before also visiting Mumbai.

Cohen is expected to sign several agreements during the visit, including, as the Israeli media reported, a consular agreement to bring Indian workers to Israel for construction work. In Mumbai, he is expected to inaugurate a ‘Jewish Trail’, an initiative under which Jewish monuments in Maharashtra will be identified and opened to tourists from all over the world.

India is looking to further enhance bilateral cooperation with Israel in areas like defence, security, agriculture and innovation. The two countries last year adopted a vision statement for defence cooperation declaring their intention to further develop the partnership in a manner that harnesses Israel’s “technological advance and operational experience, together with India’s extraordinary development and production capabilities''.

According to Israel, they are also discussing partnerships within the government-to-government framework, military training and technological cooperation with a focus on UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and defensive capabilities.