MONTERREY, Mexico — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Iran has a role to play in the region that includes neighboring Afghanistan and she hopes it will be constructive.
Clinton told reporters in Monterrey that the United States will continue to reach out to Iran, even though earlier efforts were unsuccessful. President Barack Obama’s outreach to Iran in a video message recently was rebuffed by Iranian leaders.
Iran has accepted an invitation to a conference on Afghanistan next week at The Hague, Netherlands, that also will be attended by U.S. officials.
U.S. State Department officials have said no substantive meetings are planned between the U.S. and the Iranian officials.
But Clinton reaffirmed U.S. hopes that Iran will help in stabilizing Afghanistan.
“Iran borders Afghanistan,” she said. “It has a role to play in the region and we hope it will be a constructive role.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected Obama’s outreach, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.
Also Thursday, Clinton repeated her promises to help Mexico end soaring drug-related violence along the border that she called “intolerable,” but she said Mexico must do its part in cleaning up its police and judicial systems.
Wrapping up a two-day visit south of the border, Clinton said the violence is terrorizing Mexicans and threatening U.S. border states. She also repeated a theme on her trip: The demand for illicit narcotics in United States is fueling the drug wars south of the frontier.
“Today, (our) ties are being put to new tests,” she told university students in Monterrey, an industrial hub just two hours south of Texas that has been caught up in the wave of drug-related violence that has claimed more than 9,000 lives in a little over two years.
“This situation is intolerable for honest, law-abiding citizens of Mexico, my country or of anywhere people of conscience live,” she said. “The United States recognizes that drug trafficking is not only Mexico’s problem. It is also America’s problem.”
While Clinton answered Mexico’s call for a greater role in the cross-border battle, she also said that “Mexico, of course, must do its part.”
Mexico is wrapping up Operation Clean House, its latest nationwide effort at weeding out corrupt police and security officials.
