Two Days After Netanyahu, MEA Announces Modi's Israel Visit

New Delhi: The external affairs ministry on February 24 (today) officially announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to Israel on February 25-26, two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first made the information public on February 22.

The Ministry of External Affairs has noted in a statement that this will be Modi's second visit to Israel.

During the visit, the MEA said, Modi and Netanyahu will review the "significant progress made in India-Israel Strategic Partnership, and discuss further opportunities in various areas of cooperation, including science and technology, innovation, defence and security, agriculture, water management, trade and economy, and people to people exchanges."

"The leaders are also expected to exchange perspectives on regional and global issues of mutual interest," the statement said.

In December last year, Netanyahu cancelled his scheduled trip to New Delhi, following a terror attack near the Red Fort although Indian officials denied a connection between the two. Israel also cancelled Netanyahu's visits in April and September last year. Netanyahu had cancelled a one-day trip to India on a day's notice in 2019 as well.

Modi is also going to meet Israel President Isaac Herzog.

"This visit will reaffirm the deep and long-standing strategic partnership between the two countries and will present an opportunity to review the common challenges as well as realign efforts towards achieving their shared vision for a robust partnership between two resilient democracies," the MEA said.

As The Wire has analysed before, Modi's visit comes at a time when India’s foreign policy bandwidth is strained by overlapping security dependencies, economic vulnerabilities and diplomatic balancing acts.

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