U.S., Mexico to meet on drugs in Washington next month

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (Reuters) - The United States and Mexico will launch a new effort next month to battle Mexican cartels that are smuggling drugs into the United States, their two foreign ministers announced on Thursday.

"I look forward to hosting the high-level consulting group of all the relevant secretaries and ministers who will have responsibility for this in Washington some time next month," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after talks in Mexico with her Mexican counterpart, Patricia Espinosa.

The U.S. Congress in June approved $465 million in aid for Mexico and Central America for equipment to defeat drug cartels, but violence continues to spiral in Mexico. More than 3,725 people have died this year in a war for control of smuggling routes into the United States and killings and kidnappings have also spilled across the border.

Funding for the new program has not yet been released. But Rice said the money would be sent as soon as letters of agreement governing the funds were finished.

"We all want the disbursements to begin and we expect that to happen, really, quite soon," she said at a joint press conference with Espinosa.

The Merida Initiative, as it is called, will pay for inspection equipment like scanners, helicopters and surveillance aircraft as well as canine units to support interdiction. It will also finance training and technical advice to support law enforcement operations in Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has sent some 36,000 troops across Mexico to try to restore law and order, has called on Washington to release the equipment quickly.

Bush, who leaves office early next year, proposed the initiative as a three-year program totaling $1.4 billion. He has asked Congress to approve another $500 million for the fiscal year that ends next September.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)