As regards humanitarian issues and how to handle them, that was the Prime Minister's [Shinzō Abe] initiative. He brought the matter up at our last meeting in Lima and asked me straightforwardly whether we would agree to let Japanese citizens travel on a visa-free basis, resolve the issue in such a way as to enable them to visit the South Kurils, visit their native areas. I said at once that it was quite possible.

Our trend in the privatization process and gradual withdrawal of the state from certain assets remains unchanged.

We are currently gradually stabilizing our economy.

I insist that people - wherever they live - have their rights and they must be able to fight for them.

I always had a problem when someone was trying to place sport in social and political context. Sport is a separate and unique kind of human activity, which functions under its own rules and principles. It has nothing to do with the political agenda, and neither it should. When politics interferes with sport, unjust things happen.

It is clear that the international community has no other universal organisation of the likes of the United Nations.

Therefore, let me reiterate that the rate should not meet the interests of a specific group or one or two groups, it should meet the fundamental development interests of the economy itself.