An increase of two or three degrees wouldn't be so bad for a northern country like Russia. We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up.

I consider it to be the meaning of my whole life and my obligation to serve my fatherland and our people.

If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake.

There is also a huge potential for developing the aviation and space industries. As you might have noticed we have launched a new Russian spaceport in one of the Far Eastern regions.

Speaking about our largest oil company Rosneft, and I recalled in the beginning that almost 20 percent of it [19.7] belongs to BP. Who's company is that? British Petroleum, isn't it? I suppose that is not bad. I have to tell that British Petroleum's capitalization is significantly related to the fact that it owns more than 19 percent of Rosneft, which has vast oil reserves both in Russia and abroad. This has its impact on the company's stability as well.

Irrespective of when this may happen, it would not be an exaggeration to say that today millions of people living in Russia and, I am sure, millions of people living in Japan have an urge to get to know each other, cooperate and exchange useful information, as well as a sincere desire that all problems that still remain unresolved be resolved.

I believe there are a lot of questions today that require expert analysis by various agencies: political agencies, foreign ministries, economic agencies and security agencies. We need to assess everything and understand what we can agree on and what the implications will be both for Japan and for Russia so that both the Russian people and the Japanese people come to the conclusion that these compromise solutions are acceptable and are in our countries' interests.