The participants expressed anxiety about the problems the Defense Ministry had been meeting in realizing its plans for future development.

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 aims are absolutely clear: They are a high living standard in the country and a secure, free and comfortable life.

Hitler wanted to destroy Russia- everyone needs to remember how that ended

Of course, it's always bad to lose, of course it's always a hardship when you lose to yesterday's miners or yesterday's tractor drivers. But life is life. It'll surely go on.

Sometimes it is necessary to be lonely in order to prove that you are right.

As a rule, [populism] is done for the sake of political expediency by those who do not care about the consequences, who do not think even one step ahead, who do not want to think and do not intend to honour their commitments.