The Israeli prime minister has endorsed an Indian request to accord license to Indian companies to re-market Israeli weapons to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar. During his last visit to India Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Afghan former president Hamid Karzai and a group of Bangladeshi officials and businessmen to promote third-party business.
According to a reliable source reached by telephone the brief but unreported meeting between Karzai and Netanyahu took place in New Delhi on the sidelines of Indo-Israel Summit meeting on January 16, 2018. During the occasion Afghan Ambassador to New Delhi, Dr. Shaheda Abdali also met with Israeli officials including director general of Israel’s foreign ministry Yuval Rotem.
A former Afghan-origin American Zalmay Khalilzad who was also in New Delhi at the time met with India’s former RAW Chief Vikram Sood to discuss secret inter-actions with certain Afghan nationals.
Israeli diplomats in New Delhi and defence industry officials have already established direct contacts with some regional states but Israeli officials are reluctant to deal directly with Muslim majority states such as Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
But it was for the first time that during his recent visit to India Israeli Prime Minister has agreed that India can market for Israeli defence as well as other products in two Islamic states.
Israeli newspaper Haarretz has confirmed that presence of Hamid Karzai and reported only about a hand-shake with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. However, it did not mention about the unpublicized meeting between Hamid Karzai and Netanyahu.
According to an Indian source who refused to be identified said “during New Delhi and Tel Aviv agreed for India’s role in re-orienting Israeli defence products and the Israeli companies would be encouraged to co-produce some of the hi-tech defence and security products in India as part of “make-India campaign”.