In 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirō Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is... not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

We have wide-ranging joint projects in the nuclear energy sphere, logistics, machine building and trade as a whole [with China].

Of course Germany's media are heavily influenced by the country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

I will not meddle in America's internal political squabbles.

If anybody,wants to get rid of us, then this is a different approach. However, we will get over it; you never know who is going to lose more with such an approach.

Given the cost of borrowings and the $100 billion in Government reserves, there is no reason for us to borrow. We should review the situation carefully. Besides, borrowings are possible, but we must understand what is more profitable at this point.