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.

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.

We need to be very careful when considering whether or not to change the constitution to accept same-sex marriage as this issue touches on the fundamentals of how we live.

It goes without saying that the stability of the Middle East is the foundation for peace and prosperity for the world, and of course for Japan. Should we leave terrorism or weapons of mass destruction to spread in this region, the loss imparted upon the international community would be immeasurable.

We aim to achieve general progress in relations between North Korea and Japan.

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 Senkaku islands are inherently Japanese territory. I want to show my strong determination to prevent this from changing.