NEW DELHI/NEW YORK, 25 September 2003 — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has made it clear that India continues to count Arabs as friends despite establishing close ties with Israel.
Speaking at a reception organized in his honor by Indian Ambassador to the US, Lalit Mansingh, Vajpayee said that barring stray opposition, most Indian political parties were agreed on the need to have a deeper and stronger relationship with Israel.
This, he emphasized, did not in any way suggest that India had abandoned its Arab friends.
“We continue to champion the cause of the Arab world,” Vajpayee said.
“People who have lost their homeland must get it back,” he said, in a reference to the Palestinians. “(But) violence is not an answer.”
Vajpayee is in New York to attend the 58th session of the UN General Assembly. He was to have a luncheon meeting with President George W. Bush yesterday.
India is seeking cooperation from Israel, officials said, on both short range missiles like sea-skimming Danush and for longer range missiles like the 3000-km range Agni III, waiting to be test-fired. India and Israel, sources said, are also likely explore collaboration to revive the extremely complex multi-target surface to air missile.
Vajpayee’s Turkey visit, just ahead of his US visit and soon after Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s India-visit, had fueled speculations in certain quarters about it aiming at a India-Turkey-Israel axis. Turkey is one of the few countries, which has close ties with Israel as well as the Palestinians.
