Except he apologised for causing hurt, he didn't apologise that people felt hurt. There's a difference in the level of responsibility taken for the action.

A straight apology now would have been nothing short of opportunistic and considered cheap.

Promising action to the contrary sounds a lot better.

A sequence of words does not have a single meaning and does not always mean the exact same thing. This sequence of words is not necessarily a non-apology apology. That interpretation denies the possibility that someone can be genuinely sorry that his opinion and words caused grief, even though he still stands by that opinion and those words.

He addresses accountability further down in the text.

I think you mis-read it. Please re-read it again and again and again.

I can only ask for your support to have the time to “show, not tell”; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.

I will rewrite this for him.

"I can only ask for your support to have the time to "show, not tell"; and in the meantime I want to show you my sadness, regret for causing you feeling distress and uncomfortable."

I replace express and sorrow with definition coming straight out of a dictionary.