The United States supports Philippine efforts to strengthen its ties
with China and does not view President Duterte’s state visit to Beijing
as a slight, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said
yesterday.
“As to whether he’s pivoting east or west, I can’t speak to that.
Certainly, it’s in the Philippines’ interest to have strong relations in
the region, and as much as this is an effort in that direction, we
would support it,” Toner said when asked how he viewed Duterte’s visit
in China.
Washington is focused on maintaining close relations and cooperation
with Manila in many areas including counternarcotics as well as
security, Toner said.
“That said – and this is not specific to the Philippines – we’re
always going to be clear when we see credible allegations of human
rights abuses or of any kind of actions by the government or by security
forces,” he said.
Toner said despite the rhetoric and some of the
things said by the leadership in the Philippines, “we have not seen any
indication at the working level of a turning away from the United
States.”
“We have a very strong, very long historic relationship with the
Philippines and we’re going to continue to pursue that,” he added.
At the same time the United States would encourage the Duterte
administration to conduct thorough and transparent investigations where
there are credible reports of extrajudicial killings by or at the behest
of government authorities, Toner said.
He urged the government to ensure its law enforcement officers are consistent with their international human rights obligations.
Source: Philippine Star
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