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By: Sophie Nicholson
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The top US officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and their Mexican counterparts will assess a multi-million dollar package to help tackle Mexico's drug gangs, and were expected to focus on border cooperation around the country's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez.
Hitmen this month killed an American consulate worker and her husband, and the husband of another US consulate staff member in the border city, barely a month after gunmen burst into a teenagers' party and killed 15 people nearby.
"The tragic events in (Ciudad) Juarez are just a reminder of the challenges both countries face," said Arturo Valenzuela, the top US diplomat to Latin America, on Friday.
North of the border, US law enforcers on Thursday rounded up members of the Barrio Azteca gang -- hitmen for the Juarez drug gang known as Los Aztecas in Mexico -- who are thought to have carried out the consulate-linked killings.
Ciudad Juarez, an impoverished city a bridge away from El Paso, Texas, has been a testing ground for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on the powerful drug cartels, which includes the deployment of some 50,000 troops.
But protests by frustrated residents greeted Calderon when he visited the city last week.
Some 2,600 were killed in the city of 1.3 million last year alone, despite the deployment of more than 6,000 troops there.
Thousands of residents have fled and those who remain complain of growing crime and extortion.
In an effort to restore confidence, the Mexican leader has presented a new plan to boost spending on social programs such as health and education in the city.
"Calderon is beginning to recognize that the war on the cartels cannot be won on a purely military basis, but instead needs to be part of a broader effort to reduce the incentives for engaging in illegal activities," Dan Erikson, a senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank in Washington told AFP.
The Obama administration was last year the first to admit joint responsibility in Mexico's drug violence, recognizing the role of US drug appetites and the flow of weapons from north to south.
Analysts have hailed improved cooperation, including scores of extraditions of cartel leaders from Mexico to the United States, and a mass arrest of Mexican drug gang members north of the border last year.
But critics on both sides say the United States could do more, particularly in intelligence sharing collaboration on the ground.
Tuesday's high-level US-Mexico meeting was expected to focus on long term strategies for security cooperation.
The Merida Initiative, which provides equipment and logistical aid to battle organized crime in Mexico and Central America, is in its third and final year.
But only a fraction of the 1.3 billion which was earmarked for Mexico has so far been delivered.
"Ultimately, the Merida Initiative has been hampered by bureaucratic red-tape and lack of political will to ensure proper follow through," Erikson said.
Meanwhile Calderon's temporarily replacement of notoriously corrupt police officers with soliders was under increasing scrutiny as the violence continued, not just in border areas but also near the famous Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, and other pockets around the country.
The army's record has also suffered from complaints of its sometimes brutal treatment of suspects.
Amid small efforts to train up new police, it was unclear whether a new strategy would be employed.
"The army has no interest in staying on the streets. But what is the alternative, practically speaking?" Antonio Mazzitelli, regional representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for Mexico, said to AFP.
"This is the current situation and the army has to breach this time. Nobody else can breach it ... unless the territory is left to organized crime."
shn/mdl
© 1994-2010 Agence France-Presse
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