MANILA, Philippines — Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday confirmed that President Rodrigo Duterte is skipping a regional summit in Australia this month, saying the Philippine leader is “not an enthusiastic attender of international conferences.”
Malacañang early this week announced Duterte would not join his fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders for the March 17 to 18 meeting in Sydney as “developments at home” require the leader’s presence here.
The Palace’s announcement came amid strong international calls for an external probe into Duterte’s deadly drug war, which has left scores dead.
“We would very much welcome his presence but he'd always indicated he was not going to attend,” Turnbull was quoted as saying in a report by news.com.au.
Duterte, who is notorious for his resistance to international pressure, was elected by a landslide in 2016 on a brutal law and order platform.
Human rights monitors say most of the fatalities in the anti-drug campaign are extrajudicial killings committed by cops, adding that Duterte could be liable for crimes against humanity for giving the police the "license to kill."
Australia was among the countries that condemned the Philippine president’s signature drug war at a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva last year.
Australia had also urged the Duterte administration to discard plans to revive the death penalty.
In a recent speech, Duterte told elite armed police units not to cooperate in any drug war investigations by UN rapporteurs, who he slammed for supposedly interfering in the way he runs his country.
Australia is a dialogue partner of the 10-member ASEAN.