WEB DESK
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is likely to visit India in May, a month ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to Israel in June, reports Hindustan Times quoting sources.
Modi’s will be the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Israel and he is set to skip Palestine in a break from the tradition of senior Indian leaders clubbing two countries in the same trip.
Though the Modi government is trying to put an end to hyphenating Israel with Palestine , historical legacy and India’s close ties with the Arab world makes this a delicate process. India has been steadily increasing its defence and security ties with Israel since mid 1990s, but the successive governments have kept the ties low profile in public.
However, the Modi government hasn’t been coy about scaling up its ties with Israel. President Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian head of state to visit Israel. The President visited Palestine on October 12, 2015 before making a three-day trip to Israel from the next day– something Modi is unlikely to repeat.