MANILA, Philippines — United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton affirmed on Wednesday that President Barack Obama made the right decision in canceling his meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte.
"With respect to the Philippines, President Obama made exactly the right choice," Clinton said in a televised interview.
"When you meet with anyone, ally or adversary, you come in with a list of issues that are important to be raised. You determine what they are," she added.
She said Duterte's expression of regret following the White House's decision to scrap the bilateral meeting is an "appropriate" reaction.
"When the president of the Philippines insulted our president, it was appropriate, in a very low-key way, to say 'sorry, no meeting. And since then, there's been an apology and an expression of regret which is appropriate," Clinton said.
Obama and Duterte were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit on Tuesday before Duterte, at a news conference, cursed at Obama who was expected to raise concern over human rights violations in the Philippines amid the government campaign against ilegal drugs.
Obama, for his part, told journalists at the G20 Summit in China that asked his staff to "make sure that if I'm having a meeting, it's productive and we're getting something done."
The Philippines, however, remains a close "friend and ally" of the US, Obama said.
Duterte's camp said that his meeting with the US leader was "mutually agreed upon" to be moved to a "later date."