I remember my very first encounter with Japan. At that time, I was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg. Out of nowhere, Japan's Consul General in St Petersburg came to my office and said Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to invite me to Japan. I was very surprised because I had nothing to do with Japan except being a judoka. This was an opportunity to visit Tokyo and a couple of other cities. And, you know, a capital is a capital everywhere: there is the official script and certain protocol. It is always easier to talk in the provinces, the conversation is more natural.
Vladimir PutinDemocracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society.
Vladimir PutinHere is an example: while resolving current issues, our American colleagues made a proposal on the Syrian settlement but then suddenly declared at the UN that they were not going to discuss anything with us. It is necessary to understand what people want in one department versus another department of the United States. Do they have a common position? And this happened many times on very many areas of our cooperation.
Vladimir Putin