US president Barack Obama cancelled his first meeting with Philippines counterpart Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday after he described Mr Obama as a "son of a whore."
Mr Duterte, who has been roundly criticised abroad for a “war on drugs” that has killed about 2,400 people since he took office two months ago, said hours later that he regretted his comments “came across as a personal attack“ on the US president.
“President Duterte explained that the press reports that president Obama would ‘lecture’ him on extrajudicial killings led to his strong comments, which in turn elicited concern,” the Philippines government said.
“He regrets that his remarks to the press have caused much controversy,” it added in a statement released at the summit in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
The White House had earlier said Mr Obama would not pull any punches on his concerns about human rights abuses in the Philippines, its treaty ally, when meeting Duterte.
Mr Duterte responded to that with his “son of a whore” comment to reporters on Monday before leaving to join fellow leaders of Southeast Asian and East Asian leaders for the summit.
Mr Obama learned about the insult as he emerged from the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China. At a news conference, he said he had told his aides to speak with Philippine officials "to find out is this, in fact, a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations."
Hours later, his aides said the meeting had been cancelled.
Instead, Obama plans to meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday, said Ned Price, spokesman for the White House National Security Council - a meeting where the response to North Korea's latest missile tests is expected to be on the agenda.
Human rights violations
In Hangzhou this week, Mr Obama's first stop in Asia, he heaped praise on Chinese president Xi Jinping for hosting the Group of 20 economic summit in his country, an authoritarian state long accused of human rights violations.
His next stop was another one-party communist country with a dismal rights record: Laos, where mysterious disappearances have fuelled concerns about a government crackdown.
And sitting down with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr Obama made no mention in public of the roughly 35,000 people Mr Erdogan's government detained following the summer's failed coup in Turkey.
Instead, he worked to reassure the Nato ally the US would help bring to justice whoever was responsible for plotting the coup.
Mr Obama also spent about 90 minutes on Monday with Russian president Vladimir Putin. On opposing sides of many global issues, the US and Russia are nonetheless trying to broker a deal to address the Syrian civil war and perhaps even partner militarily there.
“President Putin’s less colourful,” Mr Obama said, comparing him with Mr Duterte. “But typically the tone of our meetings is candid, blunt, businesslike.”
Washington has tried largely to look the other way as Mr Duterte has pursued closer relations with China, a marked shift for the Philippines considering recent tensions over Beijing’s aspirations in the South China Sea.
A public break from the Philippines would put Mr Obama in a tough position, given the South East Asian nation’s status as a long-time US ally. The Obama administration has sought to compartmentalise by arguing that military and other cooperation will not be jeopardised even if it detests the current Philippine leader’s tone.
Agencies