Mr Obama, who flew to Laos after attending the G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, had been set to raise concerns about human rights abuses in the Philippines.
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September 6: United States President Barack Obama has cancelled a meeting with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte after the latter appeared to call him a “son of a whore”.
“He regrets that his remarks to the press have caused much controversy”, it added.
President Rodrigo Duterte said he regretted that his comments came across as a personal attack on the USA president.
The DFA said Duterte looks forward to “ironing out differences arising out of national priorities and perceptions, and working in mutually responsible ways for both countries”.
Duterte responded by saying: “Plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets”.
But Duterte’s derogatory comments and a spike in extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers put the relationship in stormier waters.
“You must be respectful”, Duterte said, referring to Obama.
VIENTIANE, Laos-President Barack Obama on Tuesday recognized America’s secret war in Laos and the remnants that linger here decades later, a symbolic gesture meant to move relations between the two countries beyond their dark past.
“We have long ceased to be a colony of the United States”, Duterte said during a pre-departure briefing before he traveled to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Monday. Several human rights groups have criticised him for his actions. “Do not just throw away questions and statements”. He had been scheduled to meet Mr Obama separately, but that meeting was called off by the Obama administration.
More than 2,400 alleged drug criminals have been killed in the Philippines since Duterte launched the violent campaign over two months ago. It’s certainly not every day that you hear a sitting president say the words “son of a whore”.
The US president will instead have a meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Spokesman for the White House National Security Council Ned Price said on Monday.
“We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me”, he said.
It is also the first visit by a sitting US president to Laos, which the United States secretly carpet bombed for almost a decade in the Vietnam War, killing tens of thousands of people.
President Barack Obama says the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal and that the USA wants to help the Lao government invest in its people.
Obama’s time in Laos will be the final trip to Asia of his eight-year presidency, during which he has sought to refocus American military, political and economic resources on the region. “Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed we will continue”, he said.
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This is not the first time the Philippine president has branded a United States official the “son of a whore”.
