MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said on Wednesday the country is not safe and criticized the previous president for failed security policies and refusal to accept U.S. aid.
“The reality is that Mexico is not safe right now,” Salazar said at a news conference at his residence in Mexico City.
The ambassador directly criticized former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, saying security coordination between Mexico and the US had suffered during his tenure.
“Unfortunately, this coordination failed over the past year, largely because the previous president did not want to receive assistance from the United States,” he said.
Lopez Obrador's attempt to tackle the root causes of violence, a strategy he called “hugs, not bullets,” “didn't work,” Salazar said.
He added that he hoped President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office last month, would be more successful in the fight against crime and violence by investing more in security.
Sheinbaum, who belongs to the same party as Lopez Obrador, has emphasized that her security policy will be closely aligned with that of the previous president.
The comments come as relations between Lopez Obrador and Salazar have become increasingly fraught in recent months after the ambassador criticized a judicial review spearheaded by the former president.
It marks a marked change from the early part of Lopez Obrador's presidency, when the two were believed to have a close working relationship – a closeness that some US diplomats privately criticized.
Mexico has recently suffered a wave of violence, with hundreds of people killed in intra-cartel wars in the state of Sinaloa, as well as massacres in other states such as Queretaro, with 10 people killed in a bar this weekend.
(Reporting by Diego Delgado; Writing by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Sandra Maler)
