Vladimir Putin Quotes

Our agreements on creating the conditions for preparing a peace treaty [with Japan] should be rooted in this trust. This may be achieved, for example, by large-scale economic activities that will also cover the Kuril Islands. It may be achieved by solving purely humanitarian issues, for instance, unhindered visa-free travel by former residents of the Southern Kuril Islands to where they used to live: visiting cemeteries, native places and so on.

The Senkaku islands are inherently Japanese territory. I want to show my strong determination to prevent this from changing.

The Japanese will not be opposed to America keeping Okinawa because the Okinowans are not Japanese.

We do not trade territories although concluding a peace treaty with Japan is certainly a key issue and we would like to find a solution to this problem together with our Japanese friends.

Some years ago our Japanese counterparts asked us to resume the discussions of the issue and so we did meeting them halfway. Over the passed couple of years the contacts were practically frozen on the initiative of the Japanese side, not ours. At the same time, presently our partners have expressed their eagerness to resume discussions on this issue [the Kuril Islands].

Kashmir is ours, Kashmiris are ours, and Kashmiriyat is also ours.

I want the world to understand that a Palestinian state means no Israeli state. That's the equation.

Palestine needs earth, but it does not need lawyers.

Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy.

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

It has nothing to do with any kind of exchange or sale [of Kuril island to Japan]. It is about the search for a solution when neither party would be at a disadvantage, when neither party would perceive itself as conquered or defeated.

Israel will not discuss a peace involving the concession of any piece of territory. The neighboring states do not deserve an inch of Israel's land. . . . We are ready for exchange for peace.

In 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirō Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.

We are natural partners [with Japan] in the world and the Far East, but the absence of a peace treaty does not allow us to develop the full range of our relations. Therefore, we will naturally strive to sign this treaty.

Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

For me, it [Crimea] is not borders and state territories that matter, but people's fortunes.

I will take back Kashmir, all of it, and I will not leave behind a single inch of it because, like the other provinces, it belongs to Pakistan.

I promise to protect Japan's land and sea, and the lives of the Japanese people no matter what.

Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.

Sometimes, recently Israeli-Palestinian conflict is indeed a clash between wrong and wrong. It is not as simple as fascism was. Every decent man had to be against fascism, period. It is not as simple as apartheid or colonialism or racism or misogyny. It is not simple because the Palestinians have no other land. They are absolutely right about this. The Israeli Jews also have no other land and they are absolutely right about this. It is a tragedy of two peoples claiming the same very small country, about the size of New Jersey.

We handed over nothing, those territories [Tarabarov Island to China] were disputed and we have been negotiating this issue with the People's Republic of China, let me stress that, for 40 years, and finally managed to come to an agreement. One part of the territory was assigned to Russia, while another part - to the People's Republic of China.

We must regain Texas, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.

You have your own culture and your own ways of doing things. I hope Japan continues on this path.

Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK.

Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.