Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will visit India next month to commemorate 30 years of full diplomatic relations between the two nations, his office said Saturday. It will be his official trip to New Delhi as prime minister, taking forward ties that had been steadily growing in defence, economic, technological, and agricultural areas and, not so much talked about, joint intelligence and counter-terror operations. 

Bennett is expected to depart April 2 for the trip during which he will meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Indian officials, as well as members of the local Jewish community, The Times of Israel said. 

“I am delighted to pay my first official visit to India at the invitation of my friend, Prime Minister Modi, and together we will continue leading the way for our countries’ relations,” Bennett said.

“The relations between our two unique cultures — the Indian culture and the Jewish culture — are deep, and they rely on deep appreciation and meaningful collaborations. There are many things we can learn from the Indians, and this is what we strive to do,” Bennett said, pledging to expand cooperation “to other areas, from innovation and technology, security and cyber, to agriculture and climate change.”

Bennett met with Modi for the first time on the sidelines of the UN climate conference in Glasgow in November. Though New Delhi recognized Israel in 1950, full diplomatic relations were established only in 1992 by the government of Prime Minister P V Narsimha Rao. 

But it took another eleven years for high-level exchange of visits, with late prime minister Ariel Sharon’s 2003 visit being the first by an Israeli premier. And Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel only in 2017. 

Bennett’s predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu and Modi are close personal friends, The Times of Israel said, noting how Netanyahu kept a framed photograph of himself with the Indian premier strolling barefoot on an Israeli beach in his Jerusalem office where all visiting leaders could see it.

(SAM)