Two new treaties with India for convict extradition and prison inmate exchange are expected to strengthen security ties with the Kingdom which is host to approximately 1.6 million Indian expatriates, according to Faisal Hassan Bin Tarad, the Saudi Ambassador to India. The treaties will be signed during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Kingdom which begins on Saturday, in the light of which Ambassador Tarad, speaking in his office here, described the countries' relations as going back to the time of the Silk Routes linking Arabia to India. “Political relations between the two countries really took off, however, in 1948 through the consulate and later at the ambassadorial level in 1955 when King Abdul Aziz visited India,” Tarad said. “In 1956, Jawharlal Nehru paid a return visit and he was followed in 1981 by Indira Ghandi.” Tarad added that Saudi-Indian relations entered a “new era” with the visit of King Abdullah to India in 2006. “The strategic partnership between the two countries was marked when King Abdullah and the Indian Prime Minister signed the New Delhi Declaration, while several other agreements and memorandums of understanding were also signed,” he said. Since that visit, trade exchange between the two countries has risen to $27 billion, putting India in fifth place on the list of the 10 most important countries exporting to and importing from the Kingdom, Tarad said. “The Kingdom is ranked fourth in countries importing from India, and supplies India with 30 percent of its oil needs,” he said. “India also has $2.5 billion of investments in the Kingdom.” On Singh's visit later this week, Tarad said that it would see meetings with King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan along with an address to the Shoura Council. There will also be a “series of meetings with Saudi businessmen” to boost partnerships, and Tarad added that there would be signings of an “important memorandum of understanding for cooperation between the Saudi Press Agency and its Indian counterpart, as well as another between King Saud University and the Indian Institute for Science, and one on space research between the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology and the Indian Agency for Science and Technology”. According to Tarad, the number of Indian nationals serving prison terms in the Kingdom is “insignificant”, while embassy records say there is not a single Saudi in Indian jails. “The treaties for the extradition and handing back of convicts are very important, reflecting as they do the two countries' wish for prison inmates in the Kingdom and India to serve their sentences in their home countries,” Ambassador Tarad said. “Indians working in the Kingdom comply with its laws and have one of the lowest rates of criminal offenses out of all the foreign communities,” he added.
