I believe it is important that we Japanese write a constitution for ourselves that would reflect the shape of the country we consider desirable in the 21st century.

The visits Prime Minister Koizumi made to the Yasukuni Shrine, I believe, had nothing to do with approval ratings. He paid respects at the Yasukuni Shrine to pay respects to the people of Japan who fought and lost their lives for the country and to pray for the peace of their souls.

The Japan-U.S. alliance is an irreplaceable alliance. And I would like to further consolidate and broaden that alliance.

Efforts to ease regulations and reform the nation's tax system have helped put this self-sustaining recovery on track, The numbers prove our policies have not been wrong.

The United States has renewed our leadership in the Asia-Pacific, prime Minister Abe is leading Japan to a new role on the world stage.

I have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them.

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it.