I do not remember when I said this [oil production would collapse ], maybe in the heat of the moment, but I do not think I even said it, but I may just not remember it. I was saying that at a certain level of oil prices new deposits will not be explored. That is what is actually happening. However, surprisingly, our oil and gas workers [mainly oilmen] continue to invest.

I am in regular contact with Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe. We have met several times this year [2016].

Democracy is an internal subject of the developing society. There are fundamentals of democracy, and they should be understood universally in different countries.

President al-Assad and his army are the only force that actually fights ISIS.

There are many other areas. And I am confident that each of them is of interest to both the people of the United States of America and the Russian people.

Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.

At the request of my Japanese colleagues, in 2000 we revisited the possibility of signing a peace treaty based on the 1956 agreement.