WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will meet for a fifth time with his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon on Thursday for talks expected to focus on security after a US agent was killed in Mexico last month.
Obama "is deeply committed to the strong partnership that the United States has with Mexico. That is the reason for the meeting," White House spokesman Jay Carney said last week. The free trade partners share a 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border and have strong economic and demographic ties, with Mexico being the largest source of immigrants to the United States.
The meeting comes as Mexico is pressing a bloody four-year-old offensive against drug cartels who are battling among themselves for lucrative trade routes to the US market.
More than 34,600 people have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006, when Calderon's government deployed soldiers and federal police to take on organized crime.
Calderon last week expressed anger with top US diplomats, accusing them of damaging the cross-border relationship following embassy cables released by WikiLeaks in December in which they cast doubt on the Mexican army.
"They have done a lot of damage with the stories they tell and that, in truth, they distort," he said in an interview with El Universal daily.
He said there was a lack of coordination between different agencies on the US side and repeated complaints that Washington has done little to stem the demand for drugs or the flow of weapons into Mexico.
The roadside shooting death of customs agent Jaime Zapata on February 15, the first killing of a US federal agent on Mexican soil in 26 years, has raised the stakes for the US government in Mexico's increasingly violent drug war.
"This trip could prove an important turning point in US Mexico relations," wrote analyst Shannon K. O'Neil in a report for the US based Council on Foreign Relations published on Monday. Obama was expected to discuss the safety of US armed agents operating inside Mexico when he meets Calderon, a senior US official said.
"It's a top priority for the US government to ensure that measures are being taken to protect our personnel," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told journalists in a phone briefing.
"That will continue to be a topic of conversation between both governments and will undoubtedly be a topic that gets discussed tomorrow," the source said when asked about a 1990 ban on US agents carrying weapons in Mexico.
The two countries launched a joint probe into the killing of Zapata, 32, and wounding of Victor Avila, a second immigration and customs agent, in the roadside attack in the central state of San Luis Potosi. Both sides have since acted against Mexico's vicious drug gangs.
Mexico's military on Sunday arrested an alleged boss of the Zetas drug gang who was reported to have directed the deadly attack.
Sergio Antonio Mora, known as "El Toto," was said to be directly in charge of Julian Zapata, alias "El Piolin," who was detained last week. US authorities meanwhile said they had arrested close to 700 people in an ongoing US-led international crackdown on Mexican drug cartels.
Past arrests of top gangsters have however done little to stem the violence, and on Tuesday Mexican authorities found a mass grave containing 17 bodies in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, which has been gripped by drug killings.
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