OUR BUREAU New Delhi

Over a week after India refused to name Iran in the Israeli embassy car blast here without any substantial evidence, Israel rushed its Energy an Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau to advise India how to reduce its oil dependence on Iran.

Among those he met included National Security Adviser ( NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon to point out that Iran is not indispensable for India as its government presumes, particularly when there are many options in a free and open global oil market.

He sought to impress that Israel is not worried about the attempt on the wife of its military attache as it has faith in the Indian investigators that the perpetrators will be " chased and found," but the major concern is over danger to the world from a " nuclear capable" Iran that brought him to Delhi.

His mission was to assure India that India will not face any crude oil crisis if it stops buying from Iran despite the financial sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union to punish Tehran for its nuclear adventures. Despite the foreign banks refusing to be link in Indias oil purchases from Iran due to these sanctions, Delhi has come up with an elaborate trade and barter arrangement to pay for the oil. Meanwhile, the Israel embassy has circulated a paper of Israels official strategic think tank, Institute for National Security Studies ( INSS), warning that the continued Iranian and Hizbollah actions causing harm to the Israelis will force its government to respond more forcefully and that can touch off a configuration in the region.

The paper painted such a scenario, complaining about the weak responses of nations and letting Iran and Hezbollah go unscathed after every attack, pointing out that Iran may now try to mount attack on other states as a retaliation to the international pressure being built against its nuclear programme. For an instance, it referred to the Revolutionary Guards'attempt on the life of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington in late 2011.