I have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them.

In Japan, usually, once you become prime minister, you do not have a second chance.

I have never been bribed as a Prime Minister.

On the question of comfort women, when my thought goes to these people, who have been victimized by human trafficking and gone through immeasurable pain and suffering beyond description, my heart aches. And on this point, my thought has not changed at all from previous prime ministers.

Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.

I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.