TOKYO, December 19. /TASS/. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an exclusive interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman that his father’s intention to solve the issue of a peace treaty between Japan and Russia motivated him to become a politician.
"From my grandfather (former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi - TASS) I learnt that if this is a policy that you believe is right, if this is a conclusion to which you came as a result of thorough considerations, then you need to conduct it decisively and firmly and sometimes with a danger for life," Abe said in an interview following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan.
"From my father (former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe - TASS) I learnt that when you solve any problem there is the need to approach it with sincere and serious intentions, and at talks with a partner you also need to have decisiveness and determination to communicate sincerely and seriously," Abe said.
The Japanese premier said his father was a correspondent of the Mainichi newspaper and was the first one to report about the signing of the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration in 1956. "Since then the conclusion of the Japanese-Soviet peace treaty was a lifetime project for my father," Abe stressed.
Abe said that during his last years of life his father visited the Soviet Union in 1990 and managed to obtain a promise from the president to solve this issue wisely. His father also told then President Mikhail Gorbachev that he would like him to visit Japan next year during the blooming time of cherry trees. And in April the president visited Japan. The condition of Abe’s father deteriorated by then and he was in hospital, but nevertheless he came up for the meeting.
"I was present there and that very month my father departed from this life. I could see his persistent wish to solve this task of the Japanese-Soviet relations, though at the expense of days of his life. At that time I took a decision to become a politician and inherit the aspiration of my father," Abe said.