Indian Defence Teams to Visit Israel and Iran

Welcome back to India Defence Online...If you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the RSS feed as it will save you a lot of time. Thanks for following the site!

India Defence Online, Delhi – A high-level defence delegation, led by Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar, will shortly visit Israel as well as Iran to foster greater defence ties.  In addition, the Defence Minister AK Antony is also visiting Oman next week.

Israel has repeatedly invited the Defence Minister of India with his military delegation to chalk out future plans of their growing defence dealings. A reciprocal visit to Tel Aviv by the Indian Defence Minister is being awaited by Israel ever since Israel’s Defence Minster visited India. In contrast, successive Israeli military delegations have been coming to India every couple of months. In December 2009 itself, two Israeli delegations had visited India.

Indian Defence Minister AK Anthony has been criticised by Leftist Indian parties for favouring Israel and sourcing defence equipment from them. However, the Indian Defence Minister is trying to allay those fears by indicating that the defence delegation shall also make a trip to Iran, which is known as Israel’s foe, and build up defence ties with them as well.

The high level Indian military delegation’s visit to Iran will be the first since 2004. The Indo-Iranian defence ties have been minimal ever since India voted against Iran twice at the International Atomic Energy Agency. India and Iran had strong military relations till 2005 and both countries use largely Soviet-origin hardware.

However, Iran has grown as a regional power and India has understood that it must develop a pragmatic and balanced foreign policy towards Iran which can be fruitful in the long run. Iran is important for India in a number of fields such as energy, trade, transport corridor and containing the Taliban in Afghanistan. As per the recommendations of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India’s national interests must be made clear to Iran. India also has to assure that it’s increasing relations with the US are not at the cost of its relations with Iran.

During the upcoming visit to Iran by the Indian defence secretary’s delegation, a team from the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is expected to tag along. The BRO completed a 217km highway between Zaranj and Delaram in Afghanistan in 2008. But for a short stretch, the road can connect the Iranian port of Chabahar to the “Garland” Highway that connects major cities in Afghanistan. The BRO ships most of its equipment through here and it happens to be a potential land route for Indian personnel and equipment to central Asian countries.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.