Mexico government, teachers meeting ends with no agreement

Interior Minister said the meeting's goal was to find a "solution" to the standoff, not the reforms themselves.

MEXICO: Marathon talks between the Mexican government and teachers protesting education reforms that have prompted deadly demonstrations ended Wednesday with no agreement, officials said.

The government announced the meeting earlier this week after 10 people died and more than 100 were injured in Sunday's unrest in the southern state of Oaxaca, where the radical CNTE teachers union blocked roads in protest against President Enrique Pena Nieto's education reform.



Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said the meeting's goal was to find a "solution" to the standoff, not the reforms themselves.

"We told them there is a law that we have an obligation as public servants to abide by and respect," he told reporters after the meeting, adding that talks would resume on Monday.

The meeting was attended by thirty teachers belonging to CNTE, which has spent months protesting Pena Nieto's landmark reform, enacted in 2013, requiring educators to undergo performance evaluations.

The government says the reform seeks to improve the quality of education, but the union sees it as an attempt to fire teachers and privatize the system.



The CNTE is also protesting last weekend's arrest of its leader in Oaxaca, Ruben Nunez, who faces money laundering charges, and his deputy, Francisco Villalobos, accused of stealing textbooks.

The meeting did not discuss their release, Osorio Chong said.

Eight people died over the weekend in Asuncion Nochixtlan, where police said they were ambushed by an unidentified armed group after officers removed barricades set up by teachers.

Two other people, including a journalist, were killed in another town by unknown gunmen.



Thousands of people led by CNTE marched in the capital of the southern state of Oaxaca on Tuesday to denounce Sunday's deaths as a "massacre."