Mexico City - The honeymoon atmosphere that was apparent in US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit to Mexico Wednesday and Thursday had not been felt since 2001, when George W Bush called then-Mexican president Vicente Fox "amigo" and visited his ranch.

Ties between Mexico and the United States have been tense. In addition to a growing trade dispute, Mexico was upset over comments made by US officials on border violence and by a Pentagon report that said both Mexico and Pakistan bear watching "for a rapid and sudden collapse."

However, Clinton smiled as she got down from the plane Wednesday, and after that she appeared friendly and respectful, generously praised Mexico in all her activities.

More importantly, she accepted part of the blame on the part of her country for drug-related violence.

She told reporters travelling with her on the plane from Washington that the "insatiable demand" for illegal drugs in the United States feeds the drug violence and trade. She admitted that the northern giant has been uable to contain the flow of drugs from Mexico, or the reverse flow of illicit arms that causes "the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians."

Her words were interpreted in Mexico as the clearest expression of shared responsibility ever made by Washington, and everything looked good from then on, paving the way for US President Barack Obama's visit to Mexico - his first to a Latin American country - on April 16-17.

For starters, while her predecessor Condoleezza Rice kept far- removed from Mexican society and stayed in the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta in her last visit to Mexico, Clinton headed to the heart of Mexico and included symbolic sites like the Basilica of Guadalupe.

She met with Mexicans of indigenous descent who in the past received scholarships from the US government, she had dinner with outstanding Mexican women and showed a human side when she mentioned - three times on the same day - that she had spent her honeymoon with her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, in Mexico.

"Some of you may have heard that my husband and I honeymooned in Mexico. We came back often to vacation in Mexico," she recalled.

"I'm a little worried that my administration back in Washington may think that my coming to Mexico is not work, but pleasure; it always has been," Clinton added.

Indeed, Mexico could hardly be more pleased about the visit, which included a visit to a federal police command facility in Mexico City and was to end in the northern city of Monterrey Thursday, with a meeting with students and a tour of a clean energy plant.

"We have great expectations about working very closely with you at such decisive times as these," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told her guest.

"This visit confirms to us that you and President Obama are deeply committed to a strategic alliance with Mexico, and we have a great hope that we may achieve this," Espinosa said. (dpa)