Manila, Philippines: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned President Barack Obama on Monday not to question him about extrajudicial killings, or “son of a [expletive] I will swear at you” when they meet in Laos during a regional summit.

Duterte said before flying to Laos that he is a leader of a sovereign country and is answerable only to the Filipino people. He was answering a reporter’s question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings to Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.

In his typical foul-mouthed style, Duterte responded: “I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. [Expletive] I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase for son of a [expletive].

Duterte has earlier cursed the pope and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It isn’t clear whether Obama plans to raise the issue of extrajudicial killings with Duterte during a meeting on the sidelines of the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“Who is he to confront me?” Duterte said, adding that the Philippines had not received an apology for misdeeds committed during the US colonisation of the Philippines.

He pointed to the killing of Muslim Moros more than a century ago during a US pacification campaign in the southern Philippines, blaming the wounds of the past as “the reason why (the south) continues to boil” with separatist insurgencies.

Duterte also pointed to human rights problems in the United States.

Last week, Duterte said he was ready to defend his bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, which has sparked concern from the US and other countries.

Duterte said he would demand that Obama allow him to first explain the context of his crackdown before engaging the US president in a discussion of the deaths.

The White House had no immediate reaction to Duterte’s comments. Obama has been attending a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in Hangzhou, China.

Duterte also said on Monday “plenty will be killed” before the end of his campaign against illegal drugs that has led to the death of about 2,400 people since he became president two months ago.

“Plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets. Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed we will continue,” Duterte told reporters before leaving for Laos.

Police say about 900 of those killed died in police operations, and the rest were “deaths under investigation”, a term human rights activists say is a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings.

Duterte, a former crime-busting mayor of southern Davao city, won the presidency in May promising to suppress crime and wipe out drugs and drug dealers.

While his campaign has won popular support, the killings have alarmed rights groups and brought expressions of concern from the United States, a former colonial power and a close Philippine ally, and the United Nations.