Reuters
Saturday; Page A03

Mexico may withdraw from a Western Hemisphere defense pact, Mexican President Vicente Fox said yesterday, because the Cold War-era alliance is "seriously
obsolete and useless."

Fox said his government will decide within 60 days whether to quit the Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947.

"Our purpose is to promote the building of a new regional security structure," he said in a speech to the Organization of American States, which represents all the
hemisphere's nations except Cuba.

The Rio Treaty, designed to trigger regional support in case of a threat to any country from outside the hemisphere, proved a failure during the 1982 Falklands War
fought between Argentina and Britain, he said.

Fox said the end of the Cold War and the onset of a globalized world mean that threats are no longer mainly military but social and economic, requiring a wider
definition of security that included poverty.

"The Rio Treaty is not just seriously obsolete and useless. It has also prevented the rise of a security notion that fits the needs of the hemisphere," he said at the end
of three-day state visit to Washington.

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