McCain lauds Bogota's fight against drug trafficking

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CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 2 (AFP): US Republican presidential candidate John McCain lauded Bogota's fight against drug trafficking and endorsed the festering effort at a US-Colombia free trade pact during his first stop in a campaign swing through Colombia and Mexico.

"First I want to congratulate you, on your success on Plan Colombia to first reduce and then eliminate the flow of drugs from your country to mine," Senator McCain said Tuesday after a more than 90 minute meeting with Colombia President Alvaro Uribe in the coastal city of Cartagena.

Colombia authorized the extradition of 26 of its citizens to the United States where they are accused of trafficking drugs, the presidency said in a statement.

Four women are among those to be sent to the United States, the government said Tuesday, while one person is also to be extradited to Peru under similar circumstances.

Since August 2002, when President Alvaro Uribe took power, the government in Bogota has extradited more than 500 Colombians, the majority of them to the United States and primarily for drug trafficking and money laundering offences.

McCain also complemented Uribe on his government's fight against the the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has held scores if not hundreds of people hostage for years.