We are natural partners [with Japan] in the world and the Far East, but the absence of a peace treaty does not allow us to develop the full range of our relations. Therefore, we will naturally strive to sign this treaty.

Russia has not taken part and is not going to take part in any actions aimed at removing legitimate government.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is controlling this, the sanctions against Iran are lifted - but still the US are working on their missile defense system. What is the point of this?

25 million of Russian people suddenly turned out to be outside the borders of the Russian Federation. They used to live in one state; the Soviet Union has traditionally been called Russia, the Soviet Russia, and it was the great Russia. Then the Soviet Union suddenly fell apart, in fact, overnight, and it turned out that in the former Soviet Union republics there were 25 million Russians. They used to live in one country and suddenly found themselves abroad. Can you imagine how many problems came out?

In the near future, despite the development of alternative energy, when you look at the economics and environmental standards, then there's no other source of primary energy in the world than natural gas. Well, perhaps there is nuclear energy but there are also a lot of issues there and there are opponents of nuclear energy. Gas doesn't have those opponents. But there is a country that is, obviously, the world leader in gas reserves. That's our country, the Russian Federation.

Though we still come first in the sphere of gas export, national production has diminished due to the increasing volumes of hydrogenation for the electric power industry and therefore there is a lower need for gas at thermal power plants.

As for that footage, video footage showing the dead children allegedly killed in the chemical attack, it is horrible. The question is only who did it and what they did, and who is responsible for this. These pictures do not answer the questions I have just posed. There is an opinion that it's a compilation by these very rebels, who are connected with al-Qaida and who were always distinguished by exceptional brutality.