Show me a country that welcomes all: Jaishankar

New Delhi : No country in the world says everybody is welcome, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday, hitting out at those criticising India over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Jaishankar flayed the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its criticism on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, saying its director had been wrong earlier too and one should look at the UN body's past record on handling the Kashmir issue.

"We have tried to reduce the number of stateless people through this legislation. That should be appreciated," he said when asked about the CAA at the ET Global Business Summit.

"We have done it in a way that we do not create a bigger problem for ourselves. Everybody when they look at citizenship has a context and has a criterion. Show me a country in the world which says everybody in the world is welcome. Nobody does that.

Look at America. Look at the Europeans. I can give you example of every European country. There is some social criterion," he noted.

The external affairs minister said moving out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was in the interest of India's business.

Asked about the UNHRC director not agreeing with India on the Kashmir issue, Jaishankar said, "UNHRC director has been wrong before.

How carefully they (UNHRC) skirt around the cross-border terrorism problem, as if it has nothing to do with country next door. Please understand where they are coming from; look at UNHRC's record how they handled the issue earlier."

Asked if India was losing its friends, Jaishankar said, "Maybe we are getting to know who our friends really are." He said it is a kind of geo-political assessment as there was a time when India was very defensive, its capabilities were less, threats were more and risks were higher.

"We adopted a policy of managing the world but kind of staying away. We can't do that any more. We are the 5th largest economy of the world and will be the third largest. We have to engage everybody and find solutions," he said.

"In a sense you would have geopolitical constituency out there in the world. There will be people who understand the changes of India, who agree with it, there are people who may not agree with it.

I would not mix the two. I would not mix apples and oranges. I think these are two different processes at work. But, I will come out ahead at the end of it," the minister said.

On opposition to the CAA and whether India has not been able to convince the world enough, he said, "There are sections of the world outside of the media."

He noted that he has engaged with governments and cited the example when in Brussels, he had 27 foreign ministers in a room to whom he was talking.