Duterte 'seriously considering' cutting ties with Iceland

The Philippine president is “seriously considering” cutting diplomatic ties with Iceland, which spearheaded a resolution that asked the U.N.’s top human rights body to look into the thousands of deaths of suspects under his anti-drug crackdown.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters late Monday that the Iceland-initiated resolution which was adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council in a vote last week in Geneva showed “how the Western powers are scornful of our sovereign exercise of protecting our people from the scourge of prohibited drugs.”

Panelo says President Rodrigo Duterte “is seriously considering cutting diplomatic relations with Iceland” for initiating the “grotesquely one-sided, outrageously narrow, and maliciously partisan” resolution.

Human rights groups, however, have lauded the resolution as crucial to helping end the drug killings and bringing perpetrators to justice.