PM to visit Israel on Feb 25-26, announces Netanyahu: 'India is enormously powerful and popular'

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Israel on a two-day visit from February 25 to 26, sources told PTI on Monday, though full details of the visit are not yet known.

The news about PM Modi's visit to the nation was first announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while he was addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations on Sunday.

"Parliament address on the anvil. Who's coming here next week? Narendra Modi," Netanyahu told the gathering.

This would be the second visit to Israel by the Indian leader, the first having taken place in July 2017, which was also the first-ever by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state.

"Tremendous alliance between Israel and India, and we are going to discuss all sorts of cooperation. Now, you know, India is not a small country. It has 1.4 billion people. India is enormously powerful, enormously popular," he was quoted as saying by the news agency.

India-Israel BIT

The two countries signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) during the visit of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in September, followed by the signing of a Terms of Reference (TOR) leading to FTA during the visit of Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal to Israel in November last year.

In the same year as Goyal's visit, India and Israel inked a landmark agreement to enhance defence, industrial, and technological cooperation, enabling the sharing of advanced technology to promote co-development and co-production, according to an official government release.