JERUSALEM:
India has called off an order to buy Spike
anti-tank guided
missiles from Israel´s state-owned defence contractor Rafael, the company said.
The
deal was worth about $500 million and the announcement of its termination came a couple of weeks before
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit India. An Indian Defence Ministry spokesman declined comment on the cancellation. Local media reported that India?s Defence Research and Development Organisation was developing a domestic
anti-tank missile the government was keen to support.?Rafael regrets the decision and remains committed to cooperating with the Indian Ministry of Defence and to its strategy of continuing to work in India, an important market, as it has for more than two decades, to provide
India with the most advanced and innovative systems,? the firm said in a statement. However, India´s Defence Ministry said separately it had cleared a plan to buy 131 Barak surface-to-air
missiles built by Rafael.
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