Mexico vows to win drug war

The violence has also spilled over the border into the US, as cartels battle for control of lucrative trade routes.

“It is important that we remove the power from these groups in our country, to recover fully the right of Mexicans to live in peace which has in a way been kidnapped, seized in certain geographical areas which are highly relevant for Mexico,” Mora said.

Legalisation call

Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president, has deployed 36,000 soldiers and police and spent $6.4bn in an effort to crackdown on both the cartels and Mexican officials accused of helping to protect their leaders.

“We’ll build local police operatives so they can provide the public security service to the citizens of their communities and this is exactly what we are doing,” Mora said.

“We have designed a model of operation for police forces throughout the country and we believe that this is something that will be there after we end with this violent period of the war, this is not going to be there forever I can assure you.”

In depth

Mora also rejected arguments that the legalisation of drugs in the US was one possible solution to the spiralling violence associated to with the drug trade.

“This is a very complex phenomena, there are emerging markets elsewhere, for instance the most attractive market for cocaine today in the world is not the US in terms of prices it is Europe.”

“Europe pays, even with the strong dollar, a much higher price than the US would say for cocaine and volumes are growing rapidly”.

“We’re very clear in understanding the kind of phenomena we’re facing. You’re not going to hear from me an argument in terms of legalising drugs across the border.”