Mexico pledges to help U.S. fight terror

President Vicente Fox on CNN's "Larry King Live"

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Mexico is willing to go "all the way" to help the United States in its war on terrorism by supplying oil, preventing movement of terrorists' money and keeping them from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, President Vicente Fox said Friday.

"We have strengthened our mechanisms related to migration so that we make sure that the Mexican territory is absolutely not used by terrorists," Fox told CNN's "Larry King Live" on Friday.

He said Mexico will "control and enhance the law within our territory and on the border to make sure that no terrorists will come through Mexico to go to the United States."

In the first week after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Fox said the number of visitors dropped 30 percent in Mexico's largest resort city, Cancun.

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"But it's coming back. It's recuperating, slowly, but it's recuperating," he said. "Fortunately, up to now for the month of October, we don't have yet one single cancellation. So we still expect that people will come back, to ride planes -- that people will come back to work."

The Mexican president visited Washington the week before the terrorist attacks, pushing for "regularization" of Mexican nationals who migrated illegally to the United States. He said he expects those discussions to continue, despite new security concerns in the wake of the attacks.

He said he had a conversation with President Bush in which Bush told him "that although right now concentration would have to be on facing this challenge and this problem ... our bilateral matters will not be affected."

"Soon, we'll be coming back to discuss the projects that we are developing together on this alliance for prosperity that we're working with the United States," Fox said. "I think that we will come back to normality also on these issues."

While Fox said Mexico will help the United States diplomatically and would be willing to share intelligence and supply oil, he said he does not expect Mexico to participate in any U.S. military operation.

"Militarily speaking, we don't count. I mean, we are not a military country," Fox said. "We don't have a strong army. That is not the way we contribute."