MANILA — The new Philippine president on Friday blamed US intervention for the bloody conflicts in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries in his latest criticism of Manila’s closest security ally.
President Rodrigo Duterte suggested in a speech that intrusive policy was to blame for terrorist attacks on US soil, saying, “It is not that the Middle East is exporting terrorism to America, America imported terrorism.”
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was backed by Britain, led to Saddam Hussein’s downfall but caused the oil-rich nation to descend into bloody factional strife, Duterte said, adding that America’s action had no legal basis.
“They forced their way to Iraq ... look at Iraq now, look what happened to Libya, look what happened to Syria,” he said. “People are being annihilated there including children.”
“They destroyed the Middle East,” Duterte told the Muslim community in southern Davao city in a ceremony marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The former Davao mayor has said he would be a leftist president who would chart a foreign policy not dependent on the United States.
He has pointed out the benefits of nurturing friendly relations with Beijing, including a Chinese offer of financing railway projects in the Philippines. The country has had frosty ties with China under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, who bolstered security ties with the US to deter China’s aggressive actions in disputed South China Sea territories.
Duterte has given allies of communist rebels at least two key posts in his Cabinet as part of an effort to forge a peace deal with the Maoist insurgents, who have waged a Marxist insurgency for decades and are labeled terrorists by Washington.
Duterte’s speech on Friday centered on his plan to open peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups in southern Mindanao region, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
Duterte’s plan includes shifting the country to a federal system that would give more autonomy and resources to regions like Mindanao, where Davao city is located. He called on Muslims to back his efforts.
“As a nation, we must sit down,” he said. “Why will we kill each other?“
In the case of Abu Sayyaf militants, Duterte said he would not lump them with criminals, saying “these were the guys who were driven to desperation.” He did not say how he would try to deal with the extremists although he has warned them in recent weeks to stop a wave of kidnappings for ransom or face “a reckoning one of these days.”
Washington and Manila list the Abu Sayaf as a terrorist organization for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings.
Despite Duterte’s critical remarks, there has been no indication that he would move to change the country’s robust defense ties with the United States.
The treaty allies hold largescale combat exercises each year and signed a 2014 defense pact that will allow the US military to temporarily base troops and build and operate facilities in Philippine military camps, a move that was viewed with concern by Beijing.
