President Barack Obama Meets Informally With Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte

The setting up of the Regional Digital Counter-Messaging Communications Centre was proposed by Najib at the Leaders' Summit on Countering Daesh and Violent Extremism chaired by Obama in September a year ago.

Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Perfecto Yasay, left, who was standing in for Philippine's President Rodrigo Duterte attends the ASEAN-U.S. summit, a parallel summit in the ongoing 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits and other related summits at National Convention Center in Vientiane, Laos, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte insisted on Friday he had not meant to insult United States leader Barack Obama, but immediately took aim at another global figure by labelling UN chief Ban Ki-moon a "fool".

However Obama canceled a Tuesday meeting with Duterte because of the outburst.

At the dinner, Obama was seated six seats to the right of Duterte and directly next to the Sultan of Brunei and chatted with him as reporters were briefly allowed in.

A White House official said that Obama had a "brief discussion" with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ahead of a gala dinner in the Lao capital marking the beginning of the yearly ASEAN summit.

Duterte sparked a storm on the eve of an Asian summit this week by labelling Obama a "son of a whore", prompting the USA president to cancel a planned meeting.

Obama, however, said: "I don't think the guy's qualified to be president of the United States, and every time he speaks, that opinion is confirmed".

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Duterte said he had clarified his comments to Obama when they met.

A White House official said the exchange "consisted of pleasantries between the two". "Why now we are talking about human rights", an Indonesian delegate said.

On Monday, hours before arriving in Laos, Duterte told Philippine reporters he wouldn't accept questions from Obama about extrajudicial killings that have occurred during his crackdown on suspected drug dealers and users.

"You must be respectful".

Mr Duterte won the presidency with his hard-line policy to eradicate drugs and some 2,400 people have died in anti-drug operations since he took office in June.

Duterte delivered the insult in his native Tagalog tongue, just as he had with the statement about Obama, which he now claims he never made. Obama has endorsed Hillary Clinton and has said he plans to campaign full-force for the Democrat before the November 8 election.

Duterte also said he would try to boost security for ships using the waters between Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, where there have been several kidnappings and other attacks.


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