[ad_1]
Officials are preparing to formulate a new agreement to address the root causes of violence during the visit of the US Secretary of State to Mexico.
The U.S. and Mexico will seek a new security agreement to resolve Drug cartel violence Other issues during U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Brinken’s visit to Mexico City.
The one-day visit on Friday was because both countries expressed their willingness to conduct a thorough inspection of the 13-year-old Merida InitiativeAccording to the agreement, the United States provides military firepower, technical support, and security training to deal with crime, especially cartel violence.
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Thursday, “We believe we should update bilateral security cooperation.”
He added that Washington hopes to see the “significant results” achieved by the “Merida Initiative” “retained, cooperation is deepened, and we have an updated approach to respond to today’s threats.”
Since 2008, the United States has provided Mexico with US$3 billion for the program.
At the same time, since the Mexican government deployed its troops in the drug war in 2006, more than 300,000 people have been killed in cartel-related violence.
Some experts believe that the militarization strategy has failed because it split the cartel into smaller, more violent organizations while failing to stop drug trafficking.
the basic reason
Brinken, who traveled with the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Majorcas, will meet Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Minister Marcelo E Brad meets.
Mexican officials have called for an end to the Merida initiative, which they consider a relic of the past, and for a new agreement that focuses on development funding and other underlying causes of crime and immigration.
Lopez Obrador said in June that Mexico does not want the new agreement “to bring us a gunship and take a photo with the US ambassador as before.”
Officials from both countries said that they are developing a new framework that will take a more comprehensive approach to solving crime problems while dealing with a wider range of issues than the previous plan.
A Mexican official told Reuters that the new framework developed in the past few months did not foresee that Mexico would receive military equipment or funds, but instead focused on information exchange, inter-agency cooperation and personnel training.
A senior Biden administration official who asked not to be named told reporters on Thursday that Washington calls this new initiative the U.S.-Mexico Security, Public Health and Safe Communities Bicentennial Framework.
Officials said that after Friday’s talks, Washington will formulate an action plan by December 1, and then expect to reach a three-year bilateral framework and plan by January 30 next year.
It is expected that the agreement will also focus on immigrant smuggling.
At the same time, Mexican Foreign Minister Ebrard said that Mexico will push the United States to take more measures to curb the spread of the epidemic. Illegal gun movement Enter Mexico and expedite the extradition required by Mexican prosecutors under the new agreement.
Friday’s visit came after a major blow to the security cooperation between the United States and Mexico in October last year, when U.S. anti-drug agents Arrested Salvador Cienfuegos, former Secretary of Defense of Mexico.
The arrest surprised the government of Lopez Obrador and heightened Mexico’s long-standing fear of violations of its sovereignty by US drug agents. This prompted the Mexican Congress to pass legislation to make it more difficult for American agents to work on Mexican soil.
Since then, US officials have complained that due to tensions and the inability of US agents to move freely in Mexico, efforts to combat powerful cartels have been hampered.
[ad_2]
Source link