Pubdate: Thu, 03 Mar 2011 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: Jose De Cordoba HEADS OF U.S., MEXICO TO MEET AS TENSIONS RISE Violence From Drug War To Top Agenda As Calderon Visits Obama In Washington MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon will meet in Washington on Thursday with President Barack Obama in an attempt to repair relations at a time when spiraling violence in Mexico's drug war has frayed ties between the two allies. The meeting comes just three weeks after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent was killed and another wounded by alleged drug gunmen. Jaime Zapata, the slain ICE agent, was the first U.S. law-enforcement official to be killed in the line of duty in Mexico in a quarter century. Mr. Calderon's visit, announced last week, also comes after a spate of ill-timed comments by U.S. officials about Mexico's drug violence. Among them are that Mexican drug gangs could be allied with Islamic terrorists and that drug traffickers could overthrow the Mexican state, forcing the U.S. to send troops. Such statements have enraged Mexican officials, who are notoriously sensitive to any suggestion of U.S. interference in national affairs. "I don't recall this kind of bad blood in a long time," said Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign minister. At home, Mr. Calderon has also been feeling political heat. As Mexico enters its 2012 presidential electoral season, polls show the government's inability to halt rising violence, even as it kills or captures drug kingpins, increasingly worries Mexicans. That's a blow to the president, who has made security the centerpiece of his government program. Analysts believe that weary Mexican voters may reject the candidate from Mr. Calderon's center-right party and vote to bring back the Institutional Revolutionary Party-anathema to Mr. Calderon-which controlled Mexico for most of the 20th century and whose presumed candidate is leading in the polls. In an interview with El Universal newspaper published last week, Mr. Calderon lashed out at what he said was the U.S.'s lack of cooperation in Mexico's effort to curb drug cartels. More than 34,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since Mr. Calderon took power in 2006 and sent out the army and federal police to recover large areas of Mexico where drug cartels held sway. U.S. "institutional cooperation ends up being notoriously deficient," Mr. Calderon said. He also lambasted what he said was the disarray in U.S. interagency cooperation. He said the U.S. should help Mexico deal with the violence unleashed by drug trafficking by lowering U.S. drug consumption and cutting the flow of arms, many of which end up in the hands of cartel gunmen in Mexico. But Mr. Calderon said the U.S. hasn't been able to make progress towards either goal. "Instead, the flow [of arms] has increased," he said in the interview. Relations, in particular with U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual, have been strained by the publication of embassy cables released by WikiLeaks that described the alleged inefficiency and lack of coordination in Mexico's security apparatus, especially in the army. In the interview, Mr. Calderon lashed out at Mr. Pascual and former ambassador Tony Garza, who signed many of the critical reports. In an apparent reference to Mr. Pascual, Mr. Calderon said his "ignorance" as expressed in the WikiLeaks reports was a "distortion" of Mexican reality. People close to Mr. Calderon say that when the Mexican president met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Mexico City in January, Mr. Calderon "vented" his frustration and blamed the U.S. for not cooperating. A Calderon spokesman declined to comment on the meeting. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman on Wednesday called the meeting a "frank exchange of ideas." In a background briefing, Mexican diplomats strove to put the relationship, and the upcoming meeting in a positive light. "We see a very productive meeting with positive messages from both presidents," said Julian Ventura, Mexico's undersecretary for North America. "The importance that each country holds for the other will be ratified." U.S. officials also played down tensions. "This bilateral relation has matured to a level in which a simple statement or a given event does not have the power to wreck the relation entirely," said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson in Washington on Tuesday. Most analysts believe that despite the frayed relations the ties between the two countries run so deep and are so complex that both governments realize their interests far outweigh the present ill will. "There is a shared recognition that the mutual interests are too important to let tensions overwhelm them," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. High on Mr. Calderon's meeting agenda is progress on controlling the sale of weapons on the border, many of which eventually end up in the hands of cartel hitmen. Indeed, the arrest Monday of three Dallas men, one of whom bought the weapon used in the killing of Mr. Zapata, the ICE agent, could well be used by Mr. Calderon to make his point on the need to restrain arms sales. Mr. Calderon would also like to see a bigger U.S. effort to cut down drug consumption. Mr. Calderon is also scheduled to meet with U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) to address the $1.3 billion Merida Agreement, which provides material and training to Mexico to help in the drug war. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D