The US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, has come out to deny the accusations made this week by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, about the alleged responsibility of Washington in the wave of violence in the state of Sinaloa after the arrest of the leader and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada.
“When it is said then that the United States, we, are responsible for what is happening in Sinaloa, among other places, well I do not agree. The reality is that the problem has to be defined and solved,” said ambassador Salazar to the media, according to the Mexican newspaper ‘El Universal’.
“It is incomprehensible how the United States can be responsible for the massacres we see in different places, such as what was seen in Morelos (…) or what is being seen in Sinaloa. That is not the fault of the United States,” added Salazar, thus replying to President López Obrador.
The Mexican president had assured days ago that the United States was jointly responsible for the violence in Sinaloa due to the arrest of ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, who enjoyed different treatment from other detainees. “If we are now facing a situation of instability, of confrontation in Sinaloa, it is because they made that decision,” he said.
The United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, announced at the end of July the arrest in El Paso, Texas, of ‘El Mayo’ and Joaquín Guzmán López, son of the drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, who face numerous charges in the country for leading the operations of the organization.
In a letter in mid-August, “El Mayo” Zambada said that Joaquín Guzmán, who had reached an agreement with Washington, handed him over against his own will to the US authorities on July 25.
