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Antony has no plans to visit Israel: ministry

By IANS

New Delhi : Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony has no plans to visit Israel, an official statement here said Wednesday.

“It is hereby clarified that the (media) report (on the visit) is completely baseless and Shri Antony has no plans of visiting Israel,” a defence ministry statement said.

“The visit was never on the cards, and there were no initiatives on this from either side,” an official said.

Israel has emerged as India’s second biggest supplier of military hardware and the purchases have touched the total of $10 billion in the last decade – but there have been no ministerial level exchanges between the two countries.

There have, however, been vigorous exchanges between civil and military officials of the two countries in spite of strident objections from the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and other Left parties which support the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from the outside.

According to the CPI-M, India could not “pay lip service to the Palestine cause and continue to forge military ties with Israel”.

As recently as August, the Israeli navy chief, Vice Admiral David Ben Bashat, during a three-day visit here was closeted with military and civilian officials to discuss bilateral issues as also the security scenario in the Indian Ocean region.

This was the first visit by an Israeli navy chief to India. The then Indian Army chief, Gen. J.J. Singh, visited Israel earlier this year.

From cautious beginnings in 1992 when the two countries resumed their diplomatic relations, their defence ties have spiralled, with Indian arms purchases from Israel touching $1.6 billion last year, one-fourth of Israel’s total weapons sales worldwide.

In July, India and Israel announced a Rs.100 billion ($2.5 billion) joint venture (JV) to develop a medium-range missile for the Indian Air Force (IAF) to replace its ageing Soviet-era Pichora weapon system.

The JV would be between the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to develop a new generation, 70-km range missile.

The IAF will also be associated with the project, which will have an indigenous component of Rs.23 billion.

Eighteen command and launch systems are also to be built for the new missile, which has been described as a robust system to counter a wide variety of threats to ground assets.

The new weapon is likely to be an advanced version of the Israeli Spyder quick-reaction surface-to-air missile the IAF has acquired. The Spyder has an effective range of 55 km.

DRDO and IAI are also in a Rs.14 billion joint venture to develop an extended-range version of the Barak missile that is deployed on frontline Indian Navy warships like the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.

The next-generation Barak will have a 70-km range against the 10-km radius of the existing missile.

IAI is also in the process of converting three Il-78 heavy transport aircraft India has purchased from Russia into an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) by equipping them with the Phalcon radar that is equivalent to the Boeing E3A Sentry that the US Air Force operates.

Over the past decade, India has bought a vast array of military hardware from Israel, including Green Pine missile detecting radars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Travor assault rifles and thermal imagers used both on battle tanks and for counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.