Philippine president blames US for Middle East violence

The new Philippine president 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 yesterday that intrusive policy was to blame for attacks on US soil, saying, "It is not that the Middle East is exporting terrorism to America, America imported terrorism."
"They forced their way to Iraq ... Look at Iraq now, look what happened to Libya, look what happened to Syria," he told the Muslim community in southern Davao city in a ceremony marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"People are being annihilated there including children." 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 assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea.

Despite his 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 allows the US military to temporarily base troops and build and operate facilities in Philippine military camps.
China has criticized the pact.
In the Philippines, 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 insurgents, who are labeled terrorists by Washington.