Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who called President Obama a “son of a whore” Monday ahead of the ASEAN conference, expressed regret for the comments that led to their canceled meeting at the event—but stopped short of apologizing. Duterte claimed, in a statement, that his “strong comments” were in response to reporters’ questions. “We also regret it came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president,” he said. Duterte, who has drawn international condemnation for the extrajudicial killings of more than 2,000 drug suspects in his first few months in office, rarely walks back his often-bombastic statements, including similar comments directed at Pope Francis and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Duterte said, “I do not want to quarrel with the most powerful country on the planet.”