Today I read this article: 吉村知事が西村氏とのバトル終戦宣言、絆深まった
While I'm happy that the governor and minister have patched up their misunderstanding, there were some things that I did not understand:
の + verb construction
The first paragraph ended with this:
府庁で記者団の質問の応じた。
This is the first time I've seen の + verb construction. I would not be surprised if it were に, but の?
Clipped sentence
In the third paragraph, the governor said something that ended in と. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this と is the conditional と which roughly translates to "when, if" in English. If it 考える was negative, I would have interpreted it as 考えないといけない. But because it wasn't, guessing it is difficult for me. What exactly is the verb that follows after this?
吉村知事は「僕自身はこういう風に考えてますと。国と自治体は協力してやっていきましょうという話をしました」と明かした。
言葉のあや
The minister responded this way:
西村氏も「言葉のあやがあったが、ぜひそうやっていきましょう」と話したという。
My lack of knowledge of what counts as a figure of speech in Japanese might have played a role here, but I don't really understand what specific statement the minister's referring to as 言葉のあや. Is it the fact that the governor left out the verb in 僕自身はこういう風に考えてますと。?