Nationalism not a negative sentiment, says Foreign Minister S Jaishankar

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said that there was no contradiction in being nationalistic.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Jaishankar said that “India is an exception as we are more nationalistic, but at the same time, we don’t see a tension between being nationalistic and being international, in the sense of engaging more with the world, so nationalism is not a negative sentiment”.

“I would say the entire neighbourhood, minus one, had actually been a fairly good story of regional cooperation,” Jaishankar said in reference to Pakistan.

During the conversation with the journalists at a session of the World Economic Forum, Jaishankar also said that the Kashmir issue did come up in meetings with the US. Jaishankar outlined India’s contributions across the world and said New Delhi is willing to engage more with countries pertaining to different matters. “We are in a very unique position. Being a market economy, and a democratic and socially pluralistic country, we have comfort with the West. Being a part of rising Asia, we have comfort with a lot of rebalancing with Asian countries,” he said at an interactive session of the World Economic Forum.

“While working with countries of Asia and Africa, we have a much stronger bonding with those countries. You saw recently at the UN, the willingness today to go out and engage with countries, visit more countries and therefore you can see a new energy in our foreign affairs,” Jaishankar said.

(With inputs from Agencies)