- OTTAWA - Mexico wants its
North American neighbours to move more quickly towards integration on
a continental scale, the country's foreign secretary said on Friday.
-
- Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Jorge Castaneda was
in Ottawa on Friday, meeting for the first time with Minister of Foreign
Affairs Bill Graham.
-
- "We would like to continentalize as much as possible,"
he said.
-
- Castaneda said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 brought
to the fore the idea of harmonizing several policy areas across the continent.
-
- What Mexico wants, he said, goes beyond the continental
perimeter idea that has been discussed at length in Canada in the wake
of Sept. 11. Castaneda said it includes a more continental approach to
social issues, immigration and energy.
-
- "We have been pushing for this. And we have been
encountering a receptive ear both in Canada and the United States at a
certain level of intensity," he said. "We would like to move
more quickly. We would like to move more deeply."
-
- Mexican President Vicente Fox has spoken in the past
about those deeper moves, such as adopting a common currency, a customs
union, and the entire elimination of border controls.
-
- Written by CBC News Online staff
- http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/02/23/can_mex020223
|
