President Barack Obama is meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit on the first visit to the Southeast Asian country by a sitting American president.
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Obama is the first sitting USA president to set foot in the impoverished, landlocked country, where for nine years the US conducted a punishing, covert bombing campaign in an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam.
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.
The rest are “deaths under investigation”, a term human rights activists in the Philippines say is a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings.
Duterte responded to that with his “son of a bitch” comment to reporters on Monday before leaving to join fellow leaders of Southeast Asian and East Asian leaders for the summit.
Earlier in the day Obama indicated that his scheduled meeting with Duterte might not go forward.
The US president and his Philippines counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, were set to meet in Laos this week, where Obama is attending a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders.
Philippines new president Rodrigo Duterte triggered a diplomatic rift when he cursed President Obama and called him a “son of a whore”, after receiving weeks of criticism over his war on drugs, in which around 2000 people have been killed so far. “He expressed his deep regard and affinity for President Obama and for the enduring partnership between our nations”.
“President Obama will not be holding a bilateral meeting with President Duterte of the Philippines this afternoon”, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in Washington.
Mr Duterte said both sides mutually agreed to postpone the meeting.
In reaction, the United States authorities cancelled the meet.
Obama arrived in Vientiane on Monday evening after participating in the G20 Summit in China’s city of Hangzhou.
According to Reuters, Duterte said, “Plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets”.
The 10-member ASEAN will meet leaders of other regional powers: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Russia and the United States.
Duterte, 71, was elected in May after a promise to wage an unprecedented war on illegal drugs that would see tens of thousands of suspects killed.
Duterte has poured scorn previously on critics, usually larding it with curses.
He lambasted the United Nations after it criticized the surge in killings and he turned down a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the Laos summit.
In January this year, the firebrand mayor called the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, a “son of a bitch” during his visit to the country, accusing the latter’s entourage during their visit to the Philippines of being the cause of massive traffic jams.
The Philippines has been a key U.S. ally for years and Washington hopes it will remain one, especially as a partner against China’s military expansion in the South China Sea.
China rejects those accusations and accuses the United States of ratcheting up tensions unnecessarily.
He has also taken on a more conciliatory position with US rival China. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.
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The Philippines, which has overlapping claims with China to islands and atolls in the sea, won an global ruling against Beijing in July.
