The U.S. ambassador to Mexico has resigned after a public dispute with President Felipe Calderon over the handling of the war against Mexico's powerful drug gangs.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday that she and President Barack Obama had accepted Ambassador Carlos Pascual's resignation "with great reluctance."
The announcement came as a surprise just as Obama began a five-day trip to Latin America, where he is visiting El Salvador, Brazil and Chile, to shore up ties with the region.
The United States and Mexico have long lauded their close economic ties and cooperation on security issues, with more than $1 billion in U.S. aid being funneled to Mexican forces to battle the drug cartels.
But a diplomatic fight erupted after State Department documents published by WikiLeaks showed Pascual criticizing Mexican authorities' lack of coordination in operations targeting cartel leaders.
Calderon lashed out in an unusually critical newspaper interview on February 22, saying Pascual had shown "ignorance" and distorted what was happening in the country.
He also said U.S. security forces failed to coordinate their own efforts and saw each other as "rivals."
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