By
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - In Washington, there is no voice more critical of Mexico than that of Jesse Helms. So the vision of the dour senator posing, smiling and trading jokes with Mexico's foreign minister - a man he once denounced as a communist - seemed surreal.
But it was real, all right. Helms talked of "a future of cooperation, friendship, mutual respect" as he and other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met yesterday with their Mexican counterparts for the first time.
The North Carolina Republican also played down his past attacks, suggesting that democratic change in Mexico - where in July, Vicente Fox became the first opposition candidate ever to win the presidency - had helped change his attitude.
"It is true that over the course of my public life I have criticized certain political leaders of Mexico, and certain government policies those leaders imposed on the Mexican people," he said. "But I am not now, and have never been, a critic of Mexico."
During his meeting with Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda on Tuesday, Helms even sought to smooth over one of the few differences evident in the three-day visit: Mexico's announcement that it would not vote in favor of a U.S.-supported measure condemning human rights violations in Cuba.
But he did offer Mexico advice on its policy toward the communist island, saying the United States does not expect it to be an "agent of U.S. interests in the hemisphere."
"Rather, we ask and hope that Mexico will be a faithful advocate of its own democratic principles - at home, across the globe and particularly on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, where the last bastion of tyranny in our hemisphere staggers on," he said.
Helms also left smiling after a visit with Fox and said he wants to work more closely on drug trafficking, immigration and human rights - issues on which he and the Mexican government have clashed in the past.
The meeting yesterday with Mexican senators came as the U.S. Congress debated bills on those same issues, and reflected the growing role of the Mexican Congress under the country's new, strengthened multiparty system.
Helms is the latest of several leading Republicans to visit Mexico and praise Fox, who took office Dec. 1 with pledges to fight corruption and create millions of jobs.
In January, a delegation of senators led by Texas Republican Phil Gramm proposed a guest-worker program to bring Mexican workers legally into the United States. And in February, President Bush made Mexico his first official foreign trip.
Helms has applauded not only Fox but Castaneda, a former communist who has not minced words in his own past criticisms of the senator. When Castaneda's appointment was announced in November, Helms aide Roger Noriega had expressed disappointment.
There was no sign of that enmity Tuesday, when Helms and Castaneda shared a warm handshake, smiled for photographers and exchanged jokes.
Yesterday Helms had nothing but good things to say about Fox's administration.
"The best way to discourage illegal immigration to the United States is to encourage in Mexico market reforms and economic opportunity," he said. "President Fox is committed to this, and I am committed to helping him achieve it."
During the meeting, he urged Mexico to help enforce the U.S.-Mexican border - even as Fox has expressed interest in working toward the eventual free movement of workers between both countries.
Helms described creating "a new era of cooperation ... allowing us to work together to secure our common border and discourage the illegal immigration that serves neither your country nor mine."
Helms is often criticized in Mexico as the worst of a political system that Mexicans don't think highly of to begin with. But his recent actions have led many to reconsider their opinion.
His committee passed a bill this month that would eliminate a process by which U.S. presidents "certify" that foreign countries are combating drug trafficking to avoid financial sanctions.
Mexico and most other nations have denounced the certification program as insulting and hypocritical coming from the world's largest drug-consuming nation.
