Obama made a decision to pass on a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Moscow granted Edward Snowden asylum in 2013, but such occurrences are uncommon, especially with US allies like the Philippines.
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“We shall not be cowed”. In trademark Duterte fashion, the speech was laced with choice epithets and threats which were heard all the way to China, where Obama was attending the G-20 summit of wealthy nations. His reasoning? Obama criticized his shoot-to-kill policy for drug dealers, which has left more than 2,000 dead since June.
The summit will be followed by a series of other meetings on Wednesday and a summit on Thursday between leaders from Asean and other countries, including the United States, China, Russia, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
“While the immediate cause was my strong comments to certain press questions that elicited concern and distress, we also regret that it came across as a personal attack on the US President”, he said in a statement.
President Rodrigo Duterte met leaders of Singapore and Vietnam on the sidelines of the first day of the 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits in Vientiane, Laos on Tuesday.
Instead of the Duterte meeting, Obama held talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
The U.S.is also one of the biggest investors in the Philippines, with some $731 million in direct investment flowing into the country a year ago, much of it invested in the country’s manufacturing sectors.
The US provides hundreds of millions of dollars in annual assistance to the Philippine military.
Obama arrived in Vientiane on Monday night and will attend Thursday’s summit.
Speaking to reporters here, he said, “I do not want to quarrel with the most powerful country on the planet”, but immediately returned to his typical combative approach, saying: “Washington has been so liberal about criticising human rights (abuses), human rights and human rights”. “If you make me mad, in all honesty, I will eat you alive, raw… So. people who live in glass houses should not” throw stones.
A Philippine official who declined to be named said there would be no formal meeting rescheduled in Laos, but a short “pull-aside” conversation between the two presidents was still possible.
In a separate statement, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said Mr. Duterte wanted to reassure the United States that his administration “continues to value the alliance” between the two countries.
“Clearly he’s a colorful guy”, Obama said in China when asked about Duterte’s comment. Duterte responded: “I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony”. Obama had said he planned to raise the issue in his first meeting with Duterte, but the Philippine leader insisted he was only listening to his own country’s people.
A statement from Duterte’s office Tuesday claimed the “son of the bitch” insult was aimed at the journalist whose question prompted the fiery response and not at Obama. “Son of a w****, I will curse you in that forum”, Duterte told reporters when asked about his message for Obama. He has cursed the USA president, the Pope for causing traffic, UN, its officials and the Secretary General himself for citing the extrajudicial killings, U.S. and Australian ambassadors for criticizing his “I should have been first” comment on an Australian missionary, and all local officials who have also pointed out the more than two thousand killings so far.
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At the country’s National Cultural Hall over the weekend, young Lao trickled in to pick up free tickets to see Obama, who spoke to more than a thousand Laotians here.
