U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference at the Landmark Mekong Riverside Hotel in Vientiane, Laos, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016, after attending the ASEAN Summit.
Advertisement
“They were the last persons to leave the holding room”, the Philippine foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay said, insisting that the countries’ relationship was “firm, very strong”.
US President Barack Obama has confirmed he met Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte for the first time, despite being called “a son of a whore”.
Duterte has had a troubled relationship with the United States, criticizing its inability to stop violence in the Middle East and Africa, and citing US police shootings of black Americans as a violation of human rights.
“I realize this raises tensions”, Obama said earlier as he met with ASEAN leaders, referring to a recent global arbitration ruling against China on the maritime dispute.
“I m very happy that it happened”.
The Pew Research Center shows that since 2013, the confidence the Philippines have in President Obama has risen from 84 percent to 94 percent in 2015.
As an example of progress on his trip, Mr Obama pointed to discussions with Southeast Asian leaders about disputes over China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.
After Obama pulled the plug on their meeting, Duterte expressed regret for his comments.
Instead, Duterte sat between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Other diplomats who heard the speech, however, felt he was referring to the United States, which colonized the Philippines after defeating its former ruler, Spain.
In Laos he spoke with reporters about his comment.
There were more than 10 million Filipinos living overseas in 2013, according to the most recent official data, and cash that they send home is a major source of foreign-currency earnings for the country.
The Philippines and United States have agreed to reset their bilateral talks to a later date.
“The Philippines will also initiate efforts to drive economic growth, such as inclusive business models in the Asean and collaboration with U.S. companies”, it added.
The White House tried to play down the claim, saying it believed Chinese activity in the area was at the same level as previous months.
At dinner, they were seated far enough from each other to make a chance encounter unlikely.
Duterte set the tone for the week when, just before flying to Laos on Monday, he launched a barrage of insults at Obama in response to the U.S. president’s plans to question him over his war on drugs. On Tuesday Obama cancelled planned talks after the firebrand Duterte called him the ‘son of a bitch’. That prompted Washington to summon officials from the Philippine Embassy to complain.
Advertisement
While Mr. Duterte’s anti-American tirade delivered a jolt to U.S.
