COLOMBIA, MEXICO TO BOOST FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS

MEXICO CITY, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Mexico and Colombia agreed on Monday to
boost their fight against the billion-dollar drug trade, signing an accord
to improve cooperation
against "the gravest threat" to peace and public security.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, welcoming his Colombian counterpart
Andres Pastrana at the start of an official two-day visit, warned that
the illicit narcotics industry threatened every aspect of political
and social life.

"We identify with our Colombian brothers in recognising that the
narcotics trade is the gravest threat to health and families," Zedillo
said.

He added that drugs were "the gravest threat to public tranquillity
and national security, to democracy and the integrity of our
institutions. We know no action, no matter how powerful, is safe from
this threat and we are convinced that it must be battled."

U.S. anti-drugs officials say up to 70 percent of the Colombian
cocaine sold in the United States passes through Mexico, most if it
by land but also by small aircraft.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has said that the two main
drug cartels in the cities of Tijuana in the northwest and Ciudad
Juarez across the border from Texas now rival the power and
ruthlessness of the Colombian drug traffickers.

Zedillo and Pastrana signed a bilateral agreement on Monday to improve
the exchange of information and technical know-how in order to help
each other's countries in their fight against cartels.

They also signed other accords on trade, tourism, education and
culture.

Pastrana was due to hold talks with Zedillo after the signing ceremony
before heading to City Hall to receive the keys of Mexico City from
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the capital's first democratically-elected mayor
and a presidential hopeful.

During the accord-signing ceremony, Pastrana said only democracy could
bring the national well-being necessary to counter the seductiveness
of the drugs trade.

"Ours are two countries which believe that democracy is the only
instrument that can consolidate justice and peace as the one
legitimate mechanism to fight poverty energetically," the Colombian
president said.

Pastrana also brought along a group of Colombian business leaders who
were due to hold a seminar with Mexican entrepreneurs on Tuesday.

Mexico City newspaper La Reforma reported on Monday that Colombian
officials, well-versed in counter-insurgency methods and peace talks
with guerrillas, might also be able to advise Mexico on how to deal
with Zapatista Indian rebels in the troubled southern state of Chiapas.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry