Mr. AKASHI Yasushi, Honorary Chair of the Council of the Kyoto Peacebuilding Center

Honorary Chair Yasushi AKASHI opened the Council meeting with opening remarks, expressing his expectations for new Council member Hiroko AKIZUKI and the keynote speech by Ms. SUZUKI who came from the Minister's Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After watching Ambassador Yamazaki's recent joint press conference at UN Headquarters, he pointed out that no permanent members of the Security Council were present there. As the meeting proceeded and the focus turned to global gender issues, he described how intelligent Afghan women had spoken at past meetings.