Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?

Even if we do not always agree on every aspect, nobody should take this as an excuse to declare us as enemies.

I will not offer my thoughts on what Japan could and should have done, this is none of my business, it is the business of the Japanese leadership. But we should understand how practicable all our agreements are as a whole given the allied obligations Japan has assumed, how much independence there is in making those decision, and what we can hope for, what we can ultimately arrive at.

I'll be honest, I felt an urge to squeeze him like a kitten and that led to the gesture I made. There was nothing behind it really.

But if the U.S. were to leave now and abandon Iraq without establishing the grounds for a united country, that would definitely be a second mistake.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

I have heard this a thousand times. Of course every state has the right to organize its security the way it deems appropriate. But the states that were already in NATO, the member states, could also have followed their own interests - and abstained from an expansion to the east.