Mexican President Vicente Fox was headed to Washington on Wednesday to deliver condolences to President Bush and to negotiate new border and air security programs after last month's terrorist attacks.

``We must quickly find ways to speed up the process of extraditing criminals and terrorists to prevent the border from becoming a refuge of impunity,'' Fox said in the border city of Tijuana.

Fox said talks with the United States ``would cover commercial air transport security, border security systems ... and formulas for the exchange of information that would allow us to quickly locate groups and individuals who represent a threat.''

A U.S. suggestion to put armed federal marshals on U.S. flights into Mexico has been well-received by Mexican officials, The Associated Press has learned.

``We Mexicans run the risk that our territory could be used by the people who plan this type of attack,'' Fox said.

He said the attacks ``seriously damaged Mexico's interests.''

``Many Mexicans were killed in those attacks, and I owe it to their relatives to give a frank and energetic response,'' he said.

Fox was to meet with congressional leaders and then privately with Bush on Thursday before traveling to New York to visit the World Trade Center disaster site with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In Mexico City, Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda denied that Mexico had given a confused response to the U.S. request for aid in a war on terrorism.

``We want there to be no ambiguity whatsoever in terms of our support, solidarity, condolences and sympathy,'' Castaneda told reporters.

Castaneda insisted there has not been ``any division within the Cabinet at any point,'' despite seemingly conflicting statements by Castaneda and Interior Secretary Santiago Creel.

A week ago, Creel urged caution, saying Mexico should never subordinate its interests to those of the United States.

An hour later, Castaneda called for cooperation, telling Congress that if Mexico is to be a key player on the world stage, it must make the U.S. battle against terrorists its own.

Newspaper columnists quipped that Fox faced a war in his own Cabinet.

``This situation called for a dramatic symbolic response and instead it was the Keystone Kops,'' said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. ``Washington was furious.''

But Castaneda insisted Wednesday that Fox ``never wavered on this issue.''

``There may have been an American or two `furious' but that is certainly not what we have heard from Bush,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

Before the attacks, Bush said the United States ``has no more important relationship in the world than our relationship with Mexico.'' He promised support for improved immigration laws, a safer border, temporary guest worker programs and cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.

In Tijuana, Fox promised to send a new intelligence-gathering law to Mexico's Congress, saying ``the new scope of terrorism requires the government to revise current legislation.''