U.S. praises Mexico drug sweep, promises more help
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY, Jan 11 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday praised Mexico for its new crackdown on drug gangs and said the United States would work closely with its neighbor to help it succeed. Within days of taking office last month, conservative President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of troops and federal police to hunt down cartel members in western and northern states plagued by drug violence. "What we're seeing early on is a very hopeful sign that this is an individual who is very committed to the rule of law, so we intend to work as closely as we can," Gonzales told Reuters after meeting his Mexican counterpart Eduardo Medina Mora. "It appears this president is going to do what the law allows him to do. These issues are too important -- we cannot fail -- and we'll be in touch as often as we need to be," he said in an interview. Gonzales said the two countries needed to work on halting the spread of Central American street gangs as well as corruption, which has driven Mexican soldiers to seize guns from local police in the border city of Tijuana. He said U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies were working together much better than five years ago, but that even more cooperation and information sharing was necessary. "If we do not work together to meet that challenge, we will both fail, and the stakes are too high for failure," he told a news conference earlier in the day. Mexico counted some 2,000 gangland-style murders last year related to turf wars between cartels over multimillion-dollar smuggling routes that shift hundreds of tonnes of cocaine, amphetamines and marijuana through Mexico each year.
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