We will not allow the past to drag us down and stop us from moving ahead. We understand where we should move.
I guess I can call myself a pragmatist with a conservative perspective. It would be hard for me to explain this, but I always take realities of today, lessons from the distant and recent past into consideration.
I hope that being in places from the [Shinzo Abe] Prime Minister's past will motivate us to have a sincere, very practical and, I hope, productive conversation.
At no time in the past, now or in the future has or will Russia take any part in actions aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government. I'm talking about something else right now - when someone does this, the outcome is very negative. Libya's state is disintegrated, Iraq's territory is flooded with terrorists, it looks like the scenario will be the same for Syria, and you know what the situation is in Afghanistan.
I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. 'Superpower' is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?
We were also going to develop relations with the current administration [of Barack Obama], but somehow they did not work out well in key areas and, I believe, not through our fault. I will not list all the problems that emerged in the past few years.
We have seen very clearly over these past years that there are quite a few people who are sceptical, or let us put it another way, are cautious about the development of Russian-American relations, but the underlying fundamental interests of the United States and Russia demand that our relations be normalised.
The absence of a peace treaty [with Japan] is an anachronism we inherited from the past and it must be removed. However, how to do this is a complicated issue.
We have issued financial instruments in the past, and there is a strong demand for them, it is simply unnecessary now.
