John Kerry will not offer an apology for the United States’ use of the atomic bomb against Japan when he becomes the first US secretary of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum on Monday, a senior US official said.

Kerry is visiting the city, which was obliterated by a US atomic bomb on 6 August 1945, to attend a gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies that Japan opened on Sunday with a call to end nuclear weapons.