Background
Kōno is the eldest son of Ichirō Kōno, a former minister dealing with the Tokyo Olympic Games.
河野 洋平
Kōno is the eldest son of Ichirō Kōno, a former minister dealing with the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Graduate department poli science, economic, Waseda University, 1959. Post graduate, Stanford University.
He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from November 2003 until August 2009, when the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the 2009 election. Kōno served as speaker for the longest length since the set up of House of Representatives in 1890. He was the president of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations from 1999 to 2013.
After graduating from Waseda University, Kōno worked with the Marubeni company.
In 1967, Kono"s political career began due to the death of his father. He was Deputy Prime Minister from 1994-1995.
He was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and Murayama"s successor Yoshirō Mori. He was once President of the Liberal Democratic Party from 1993 to 1995, and to date is the only Liberal Democratic Party leader except for Sadakazu Tanigaki to have never served as Prime Minister of Japan.
Kōno is well known as a controversial figure within the comfort women debate, for the official statement he made in 1993 Asia relations with China and of Korea forme leader, when he was Chief Cabinet Secretary.
In his statement, made after historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi announced he had discovered in the Defense Agency library in Tokyo documentary evidence that the Imperial Japanese Army established and ran "comfort stations", he essentially admitted that the Japanese Imperial Army had been involved, directly and indirectly, in the establishment of comfort facilities, and that coercion had been used in the recruitment and retention of the women. His subsequent call for historical research and education aimed at remembering the issue became the basis for addressing the subject of forced prostitution in school history textbooks.
He is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Democratic Party). As he is one of the pro-Chinese members of the Liberal Democratic Party, he came under pressure domestically in the spring of 2005 when anti-Japanese movements in China became intense.