May 18, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

NEW DELHI, May 17: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, shunned by much of the world for his extremist policies against Palestinians, is scheduled to visit India soon, Indian newspapers said on Friday.

India’s National Security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, who was in Washington last week, is believed to have laid the groundwork for the visit after addressing the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee.

Mr Mishra said: “We hope to receive Prime Minister Ariel Sharon soon in India on an official visit,” and pointed out that the “constraints of the Cold War” had prevented India from extending “any cordiality to Israel”.

Diplomatic relations between India and Israel were established in 1992. But so far there has been no interaction at the prime ministerial level.

Mr Mishra told the American Jewish Committee: “India, the United States and Israel have some fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity. Stronger India-U.S. relations and India-Israel relations have a natural logic.”

Mr Sharon will be the first Israeli prime minister to visit India. In 2000, then foreign minister minister Jaswant Singh and Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani went to Tel Aviv. Israeli President Ezer Weizman visited India in 1997. Moderate leader Shimon Peres visited India in 1993 as foreign minister.

The Israeli premier’s controversial visit is widely seen as an effort by India’s rightwing Hindu nationalist government to extract benefits from a growing communal polarization within its burgeoning middle class in a crucial election year.

Many Hindu nationalists see Israel as the answer to their prayers in fighting what they see as terrorism in Kashmir. Israelis see the relationship far less emotinally, eying trade primarily in defence-related exports to india.

Mr Mishra said India has a historical affinity with the Jewish people. It is one of very few countries in the world with no history of anti-Semitism, he added.

“Until the early 1990s, the constraints of the Cold War prevented this cordiality from extending to India’s relations with Israel. Now we have full diplomatic relations, and a broad range of economic and defence cooperation.

“We have increased the tempo of our high-level visits. We hope to receive Prime Minister Ariel Sharon soon in India on an official visit.”