Barack Obama has cancelled a scheduled meeting with Rodrigo Duterte, after the new Filipino president appeared to describe the U.S. leader as a “son of a b****”.
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Obama on Monday became the first US president to visit Laos, a historic trip during which he will attend a summit of the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and of other countries of East Asia.
Mr. Obama said during a news conference on the last day of the G-20 economic summit in China that he had heard about the comment and instructed his aides to determine whether now was the time to have “constructive, productive conversations” in a face-to-face meeting with Duterte. Mr Obama had said he would raise the question of Mr Duterte’s ruthless war on drugs, which has led to a spate of police and vigilante killings.
Duterte on Tuesday expressed regret over his remark, saying in a statement his “strong comments” to certain questions by a reporter “elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the USA president”.
‘I don’t give a s about anybody observing my behaviour, ‘ he said. Speaking to reporters, Duterte, who took office in June, said the Philippines is a “sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony”, according to AP.
“I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody”, he said in remarks published by The Associated Press.
‘You must be respectful.
Human Rights Watch has called for the International Narcotics Control Board and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to condemn the “alarming surge in killings of suspected drug users or dealers” in the country. “And so, undoubtedly, if and when we have a meeting, that this is something that’s going to be brought up, and my expectation, my hope is, is that it could be dealt with constructively”.
Obama is now in Laos, a communist Southeast Asian country of almost 7 million people, for a three-day visit centered around the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The approach gained vast support among the average public, however raising concerns from political opponents, human rights groups and the U.S. in particular. Duterte added that he did not believe the subject of extrajudicial killings should be raised at such a summit.
President Obama and President Rodrigo Duterte were due to meet for the first time.
In the meantime, he said the purge would continue: ‘More people will be killed, plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets, ‘ he said.
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“We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me”. “Why make an issue about fighting crime?”
