Shinzō Abe previously unavailable in Japan. When he returned to office he used his own case to argue for lessening the time it takes to approve potentially innovative drugs. After resigning as Prime Minister, Abe remained in the National Diet and was re-elected in his Yamaguchi 4th district at the 2009 election when the LDP lost power to the Democratic Party of Japan. On 26 September 2012, Abe was re-elected as president of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party defeating former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a runoff vote by 108 votes to 89. Abe returned to the LDP leadership at a time
Japan–Russia relations leaders decided to sign off on joint projects in five areas — aquaculture, greenhouse farming, tourism, wind power and waste reduction. At the 2018 Thirteenth East Asia Summit in Singapore, Shinzo Abe followed up on a proposal from Vladimir Putin to sign a peace treaty without preconditions by the end of the year. He said that the leaders would seek a peace treaty to the terms of the 1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The declaration gave Japan the Habomai islet group and Shikotan while the Soviet Union claimed the remaining islands, but the United States did not allow the 1956 treaty.