President Obama canceled a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines scheduled for Tuesday in Laos, after the Philippine president directed an expletive at Mr. Obama on Monday.

On Tuesday, Mr. Duterte released a statement saying he regretted that his curse “came across as a personal attack on the U.S. president.” He blamed his words on “certain press questions that elicited concern and distress.”

Mr. Duterte had warned Mr. Obama not to ask him about extrajudicial killings related to his crackdown on drug dealers, a campaign pledge that helped sweep him to victory in the country’s presidential election in May.

“I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony,” Mr. Duterte told reporters before he left his country for Laos, where he and Mr. Obama will attend the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.