[1] His father, Kuriyama Shigeru, was a diplomat and judge in the Supreme Court of Japan.
[1] He held the position of Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau,[1] and was appointed Vice Minister in May 1989.
[1] The next year, he helped draft a statement on normalising diplomacy with China.
His wife, Masako, was the daughter of a Japanese Supreme Court judge.
[4] He died on 1 April 2015 in a Tokyo hospital, after suffering from pneumonia.