It was at a certain stage (you might have forgotten, haven't you?) that the United States actively collaborated with Saddam when he was at war with Iran: weapons were supplied, diplomatic and political support was provided and so on. Then the US fell out with him for some reason and decided to do away with him.

Frankly speaking, I could never even imagine that such information would be of interest to the American public or that the campaign headquarters of one of the candidates - in this case, Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton - apparently worked for her, rather than for all the Democratic Party candidates in an equal manner. I could never assume that anybody would find it interesting.

I believe the U.S. already understands and will understand more and more that only a strong Russia will respond to the genuine interests of the United States.

Our economy has become completely different, on the whole. The size has changed. The economy has almost doubled in size. And the quality is changing, not as fast as we would like it to, but the structure is changing. Our Armed Forces are completely different today from what they were, say 15 years ago or so. All of this, including our great history, great culture, all of this, not just what we see today, is what makes the vast majority of Russia's citizens feel proud for their country.

I think that all countries of the region should join their efforts in the fight against a common threat - terrorism in general and ISIS in particular. It concerns Iran as well, it concerns Saudi Arabia (although the two countries do not get along very well, ISIS threatens both of them), it concerns Jordan, it concerns Turkey (in spite of certain problems regarding the Kurdish issue), and, in my opinion, everybody is interested in resolving the situation. Our task is to join these efforts to fight against a common enemy.

Everything that we [with Shindzo Abe] are talking about has come to us as a result of the events of 70 years ago. In some way or other, during these 70 years we have been involved in some kind of dialogue on the issue, and that includes the conclusion of a peace treaty.

The level of our political trust [with China] is also very high. We have similar positions on major international issues or even, as diplomats say, our views are identical. We often have shared positions on key issues of the modern international agenda.