At a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, President Rouhani indicated that "Iran will not initiate any war in the region even with the U.S., but if a war begins with Iran, we will give a decisive response". He also stated that "whenever this [U.S. economic] war ends, we will see a positive development in the region and the world". In a bilateral session, Rouhani underscored that "if we are all interested in regional security and ease of tensions, we need to begin from where this instability was spurred, and that is economic sanctions against Iran. If these sanctions end, new types of relations will begin in the region... the key to the settlement of issues is at Washington's hands".