Asking India to shed its "carefulness" in ties with Israel, President Shimon Peres today said New Delhi should overcome its "cautious" approach which is due to a large Muslim population and further strengthen the relationship with the Jewish state.
He underlined that a number of Muslim countries like Egypt and Jordan have ties with Israel and India should also not be hesitant in bolstering relationship with it.
89-year-old Peres, who earlier served as Israel's prime minister, told PTI in an interview, "while other Muslim countries have established ties with Israel, India is cautious in its ties with Israel due to its large Muslim population."
Talking about India's cautious approach, he said, "I would say there is some carefulness in our relations. As far as I am concerned, I do not see any reasons for it and they are partly to do with domestic Indian situations than the relations between our two countries."
To buttress his point that India can have stronger ties with Israel despite its large Muslim population, the Nobel peace prize winner said, "We have relations with Egypt, which is a Muslim country, Jordan, which is a Muslim country, and there are other Muslim countries. I hope we will be able to overcome this carefulness."
"There is a very important Muslim minority community. That is what I was referring to. I don't think it should be that way as we have relations with Muslim countries as well," the elder statesman said, ahead of his 90th birthday.
Giving an overview of India-Israel relations, he said, "I think we have strong security ties that fits the two countries. There is also growing trade and scientific cooperation."
Peres expressed disappointment over India's stand on some of the issues related to the decades old Israel-Palestinian conflict, saying New Delhi should engage itself more with the region as it "may be profitable for peace".
"I think on our side we judge India not just on the narrowness of our relations with the Palestinians but in the wider outlook of a giant people that escaped from terrible poverty. The two great achievers of our times are India and China," he said.
