Mexico seeks Russian weapons to combat crime

Mexico City, Feb 18 : Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said here that Mexico is interested in buying equipment and weapons from his country to combat drug trafficking and organised crime.

At a joint press conference with Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa, Lavrov said that his country is expanding its weapons sales abroad and has increased the number of supply contracts it has in all regions of the world, a move that is "a purely economic question, not political".

Regarding the volume of its arms sales, Russia is still "behind the United States, but we're seeing certain rather serious progress", Lavrov said.

The Mexican government is interested in acquiring different types of weapons, "including helicopters for coastal monitoring", and other equipment "to fight drug trafficking and organised crime, that I hope will help our Mexican friends to combat this scourge", the Russian official said.

The US is already supplying Mexico with arms and equipment for the drug war.

Espinosa Tuesday met her Russian counterpart, who is on an official visit to Mexico to review all aspects of bilateral relations and reach agreement on pushing for new measures to strengthen those links.

Both countries emphasised their interest in signing an investment promotion and reciprocal protection accord, as well as pushing forward with cooperation agreements in energy, nuclear power, maritime and air transport, financial and customs cooperation.