The United States ambassador to Mexico on Tuesday said the two countries are currently negotiating to get the Mexican government to approve visas for U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents to work in Mexico.

According to KTSP, the negotiations were prompted by Mexico's decision to stop the issuance of visas for DEA agents after enacting a law that limited their operations in Mexico. The enacted law also removed the immunity of the DEA agents in the country.

U.S. Requests for Mexican Visa for DEA Agents

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar would not specify whether all DEA agents' visas have been completely frozen. But he noted that the two countries were already talking about the visa issue, and they were getting closer to a solution.

Salazar said they were making progress "on a whole host of fronts," and they were now doing it in a shared approach with the Mexican government. 

"The visas are one example... We are making good progress on that issue," the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico noted.

However, despite the progress made in the negotiations between the two countries, Salazar could not say what Mexico was demanding in return for the issuance of the new visas.

Some press reports indicated that Mexico wanted to have equal access to sensitive intelligence information for its agents in the U.S. However, the American government considered it a troublesome demand, given the Mexican government's history of leaks of sensitive documents.

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More Mexico-U.S. Collaborations

In January, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador published all the U.S.' information on General Salvador Cienfuegos, a former Mexican defense secretary.

U.S. prosecutors said Cienfuegos collaborated with a drug cartel, but Mexico quickly cleared him of wrongdoing and revealed the contents of the entire U.S. investigation against him. 

The move spurred a rare public rebuke from the Justice Department, which noted that it was deeply disappointed by the decision of Mexico to publicize information that was shared with the Mexican government in confidence.

The Justice Department earlier said that publicizing such information violated the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance between Mexico and the U.S. The department also questioned whether the U.S. could continue to share information to support Mexico's own criminal investigations.

Meanwhile, Salazar was also circumspect about another friction point with the administration of Lopez Obrador, a controversial energy reform bill. The bill would limit the amount of electricity that the state-owned utility buys from any foreign-built renewable and natural gas-fired power plants.

Members of U.S. Congress and energy companies have expressed their concern that Mexico would be tearing up existing contracts in the sector and changing the rules under which investments were made in those plants, favoring the state-owned utility.

Salazar said the companies were concerned, but he added that the U.S. was also discussing the issue with Mexico. Salazar noted that he was "optimistic" that a solution could be found on the issue.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Jess Smith

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