On August 30th, 26 interns from the United Nations visited the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations to attend a briefing and discussion session by Ambassador Kodama, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations.

      Ambassador Kodama first gave some remarks about the significance of the democratization in the Middle East which was described as the “Arab Spring.”  Then, as the main theme of the briefing was “Reform of the Security Council”, Ambassador Kodama explained the positions of different groups regarding the reform using documents such as various General Assembly draft resolutions. Ambassador Kodama also discussed the issues surrounding the intergovernmental negotiations on reform.

      As the last part of the session, Ambassador Kodama and the participants exchanged their opinions on UN issues. The interns listened attentively to the briefing and the discussion was lively.

      After the discussion session, Ambassador Kodama and the participants held a reception. At the reception, Ambassador Kodama and UN interns further interacted with each other sharing their views and opinion on various UN related topics, such as the Security Council Reform, and their experiences at the United Nations.