MODI MAY GIVE PALESTINE A MISS DURING VISIT TO ISRAEL
NEW DELHI: Uncertainty prevails over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Palestine when he visits Israel, possibly in June. Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.
It will be a departure from tradition if the PM doesn’t travel to Palestine. Last two high-profile visits to the region, under Modi’s premiership, by President Pranab Mukherjee and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj saw both leaders visit Palestine during their tour to Israel. Mukherjee was the first Indian president to visit Israel when he travelled to the country in October 2015 and Swaraj visited both countries in January 2016.
Sources said the visit to Israel as a stand-alone one will be befitting to mark 25 years of diplomatic ties between the nations. There is also a possibility of India hosting Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas before Modi’s visit to Israel. But source say the visit has not been “locked yet”.
Indian officials have been insisting that there is no change in India’s position on the Palestine question and it was the Modi government that hosted the firstever India-Palestine joint commission. New Delhi believes in a two-state solution to the conflict.
Though India remained wary of how the Arab world will see its ties with Israel, the government has been more open about its ties with the Jewish state. India was the first non-Arab country to recognise Palestine’s statehood in 1988. JAYANTH JACOB