The US ambassador says Mexico is not safe, blaming the former president for security failures

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said on Wednesday that the country is not safe and criticized the former president for the failure of his security policy and his refusal to accept US aid.

“The truth is that right now Mexico is not safe,” said Salazar during a press conference at his residence in Mexico City.

The ambassador directly criticized the former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, saying that the security relationship between Mexico and the US was disrupted during his time.

“Unfortunately, this merger failed last year, mainly because the previous president did not want to receive aid from America,” he said.

Lopez Obrador’s attempt to address the cause of the violence, a strategy he called “hugs not bullets,” did not work, Salazar said.

He added that he hopes that President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office last month, will be more successful in fighting crime and violence by investing more in security.

Sheinbaum, who is in the same party as Lopez Obrador, insisted that his security policy will closely follow that of the previous president.

The comments come as relations between Lopez Obrador and Salazar have become increasingly strained in recent months, after the ambassador criticized the former president’s court reforms.

It marks a distinct shift from the earlier part of Lopez Obrador’s presidency when the two were seen as having a close working relationship – a rapprochement that was privately criticized by some US diplomats.

Mexico has experienced recent violence with hundreds killed in intra-cartel fighting in Sinaloa state and massacres in other states such as Queretaro where 10 people were killed in a bar over the weekend.

(Reporting by Diego Delgado; Writing by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Sandra Maler)