Obama stands next to Mexico in war on drugs

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - President Barack Obama stood alongside Mexico's Felipe Calderon on Thursday and promised to help his "courageous" fight against ruthless drug cartels waging turf wars along the joint border.

In his first trip to Latin America as U.S. president and fresh from his first big foray onto the global stage in Europe last month, Obama said Mexico and the United States both needed to strengthen and coordinate their drug war efforts.

Obama said he had not "backed off" from the idea of trying to reinstate an expired ban on assault rifles -- which are showing up in droves at Mexican crime scenes -- but for the time being he would focus on halting the smuggling of arms and cash over the Mexican border, which would yield faster results.

"Something that President Calderon and myself absolutely recognize is that you can't fight this war with just one hand," Obama told reporters.

"At a time when the Mexican government has so courageously taken on the drug cartels that have plagued both sides of the border, it is absolutely critical that the United States join as a full partner in dealing with this issue," Obama said.

White House officials have played up the symbolism of Obama's visit to Mexico, which is struggling to contain a surge in drug violence that killed 6,300 people in Mexico last year and is starting to spill over into the United States.

Mexico has a tangled history with the United States, but many Mexicans seemed riveted by Obama's arrival.

Workers in office towers pressed against their windows for a glimpse of his helicopter and television stations interrupted broadcasts to show his speech at a welcome ceremony where he was wildly applauded.

Obama made a day and night stop in Mexico en route to meet other Latin American leaders at a Summit of the Americas on Friday in Trinidad and Tobago, acknowledging that the drug war yards from American soil has become an urgent issue for him.

OUTREACH TO MEXICO

Drug killings, often involving gruesome torture and beheadings, have soared as Calderon's army-led crackdown has triggered fresh turf wars between rival cartels, creating the biggest threat to stability in Mexico in years.

A strong-willed conservative and U.S. ally, Calderon says he has been personally threatened by drug gangs. He also called on Thursday for closer cooperation than ever before.

Obama, who hopes to improve relations with Mexico and the rest of Latin America after a deterioration in relations his advisors blame on former President George W. Bush, lavished praise on Calderon's efforts.

He said he would push the Senate to ratify a treaty designed to reduce the flow of arms and ammunition to the Latin American cartels that supply cocaine and marijuana to users in the United States.

A surge in gunbattles since Calderon started his army offensive in 2006 recently prompted the Obama administration to ramp up checks on southbound traffic at the Mexico border to reduce trafficking in U.S. guns to Mexican cartels.

On Wednesday, 16 people died in a shootout between troops and suspected drug traffickers in southern Mexico.

Obama's outreach to Mexico included a visit last month by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who soothed Mexicans by acknowledging the violence stemmed partly from Americans' "insatiable demand" for drugs. She offered Black Hawk helicopters to bolster Calderon's effort.

Obama's reception was in stark contrast to a visit by Bush in 2007 when he had to be barricaded off from protesters in the southern city of Merida and demonstrators in the capital burned the American flag. Many Mexicans bristle at Bush's building of a partial border fence and years-old tensions over territory lost to the United States in the 19th century still rankle older Mexicans.

Obama said the millions of Mexicans now living in the United States, had brought the countries closer together.

He said he hoped to fix a dispute with Mexico that flared up recently over a ban on Mexican trucks on U.S. highways. In return, Mexico slapped tariffs on a long list of U.S. exports.

(Additional reporting by Pablo Garibian and Jason Lange; Writing by Catherine Bremer and Alistair Bell)