On August 6, Prime Minister Naoto Kan held a press conference at a venue inside Hiroshima City following his attendance at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. Kan explained, “In my address [at the Ceremony], I did not simply convey the significance of attendance by representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom and France and of the Secretary General of the United Nations, as well as the sentiments of the Japanese government, but above all I thought about how the actual victims of the atomic bomb themselves must be feeling, and tried to communicate that in a concrete manner.” Kan expressed his appreciation for having had the opportunity to hear the feelings of the victims of the atomic bomb at first hand, and added that he had shown that the Japanese government would take a positive stance, by referring in his address to measures such as supporting NGO activities leading to denuclearization, including having atomic bomb victims act as Special Ambassadors for Denuclearization, and speeding up procedures for officially recognizing atomic bomb victims. He said it was his belief that he had succeeded in conveying these points effectively.

With regard to Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba’s call in his Peace Declaration for “legislating into law the three non-nuclear principles, abandoning the U.S. nuclear umbrella, legally recognizing the expanded "black rain areas," and implementing compassionate, caring assistance measures for all the aging hibakusha [atomic bomb victims] anywhere in the world”, Kan emphasized, “There is no change in our intention of upholding the three non-nuclear principles.”

As the international movement toward reducing and abolishing nuclear armaments, or denuclearizing strengthens, he stressed that as Prime Minister of the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, “I would like to proceed even more actively with the efforts that have been initiated by previous Japanese administrations.”

This was the first time that representatives from the US, the UK and France, as well as the UN Secretary General, had attended the Memorial Ceremony, and Kan emphasized the significance of this, as well as saying that he hoped that they would communicate to their respective countries and to the United Nations the feeling of the Japanese people that “we must never again allow nuclear weapons to bring about this kind of terrible tragedy.” Kan added that the presence of the various representatives at the ceremony was “to be welcomed”.

A reporter asked how Japan intended to work to encourage North Korea to reduce their nuclear weapons, whether through the forum of the six-party talks or elsewhere. Kan said that North Korea’s behaviour offended not only Japan but also the prevailing global movement toward nuclear abolition, and said that Japan would make utmost efforts in this respect internationally, through cooperation with the United Nations and other means.