‘India-US-Israel-UAE Grouping An Offspring of the Abraham Accords’

NEW DELHI : The newly formed India-US-Israel-United Arab Emirates grouping, is an “offspring” of the Abraham Accords, and will focus on infrastructure development in the region and beyond, the Israeli ambassador to India Naor Gilon said.

There will be no military element to the group though, the ambassador said when asked if the grouping could look at military exchanges like another Quad – US, India, Australia and Japan.

Gilon also said that Pegasus, the spy software that is sold by the Israeli NSO group, was supplied only to government agencies after getting the go-ahead from the Israeli government. The ambassador refused to comment on the Supreme Court-appointed commission and whether the embassy and the government of Israel would cooperate with the commission if called to do so. The development follows the Supreme Court on Wednesday appointing former SC judge R V Raveendran to look into the allegations of unauthorised surveillance of politicians and journalists besides others using the Israeli-built Pegasus spyware.

On the new grouping of four, Gilon said that India’s technological prowess, money from the UAE and innovation from Israel would power the cooperation among the four countries.

“It should be a very big success,” Gilon said adding that he hoped that the grouping would have concrete plans to cooperate and not become a symbolic forum.

The idea of the Israel-India-US-UAE quad was broached by Israel while on a visit to the US in early October and the foreign ministers of the four countries met virtually while the Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar was on a visit to Israel between 17-21 of October.

On the question of Iran, Gilon said that Israel considered the Shia country a “real threat.” While India had its position on Iran – ie as a partner in cooperation on Afghanistan – for Israel, Tehran presented a challenge.

“Each country puts forward its own concerns,” he said.

Source: The mint

Image Courtesy: Times of India