I still believe in the old fashioned ways of showing a woman Respect and Honor!!

I'm very grateful that Barack Obama as president very much put protection of privacy on the agenda today, due to the fact of Islamist terrorism all over the world.

Our relationship with the United States is not reduced to questions of fighting terrorism and the Iraq war. German-American relations were so good for so many years because they extended deeply into the normal lives of people.

The times when we could fully count on others are over to a certain extent.

We have shared those values, we continue to share those values and obviously, we will continue to cooperate with the new administration [of the U.S].

If you've worked together with somebody very well, leave-taking is very difficult. But we are all politicians. We all know that democracy lives off change. So, in the United States of America, the Constitution has very clear stipulations on this. It's a tough rule. Eight years and that's it, out goes the president and a new one comes in.

There is anything but an assurance of success, I have to be very clear about that.