MEXICO CITY, Nov 14, (AP): US Ambassador Ken Salazar lashed out Wednesday at Mexico’s failure to accept aid in the fight against drug cartels, claiming the country "closed the doors” on security cooperation. In a press conference, Salazar launched his harshest criticism yet of rampant violence, police corruption and the Mexican government’s mistaken attitude that "there is no problem.” "When they just say ‘there is no problem, we have these statistics to show people there is no problem,’ that is not based on reality,”" Salazar said. "There is a very big problem.”

Mexico sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy "expressing its surprise” at Salazar's statement, the foreign relations ministry said in a statement later Wednesday. Salazar cited violence in recent days in the northern state of Sinaloa as an example. Sinaloa state police chief Gerardo Mérida said Wednesday authorities found a pile of between five and seven bodies on a roadside there, but were still counting body parts to see how many there were.

"There is a pile of various bodies, with what we have found we have identified five bodies, but some are in pieces, they have been dismembered, there are mentions of seven,” said Mérida. Sinaloa's embattled governor, Ruben Rocha, seemed to typify Mexico's attitude when he said Tuesday -after a similar number of dead bodies were dumped on roadsides - that "we're doing well, we'll get over this soon.”

Salazar countered that in Sinaloa "the dead can be seen everywhere.” Salazar had previously defended many of the Mexican government’s actions, but he now says former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s "hugs not bullets” strategy of not confronting the cartels "did not work.” López Obrador left office on Sept. 30, but his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has pledged to continue the policy, even though under her leadership troops appear more willing to open fire. Fighting between two factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel broke out after two drug capos - one from each faction - flew to the United States and were arrested there on July 25.