The congressman said that the rate of violence in Mexico “is at its worst” and that there are only two options left: “To keep things as they are, with the consequences we know, or to open a dialogue with the criminal organizations.”“I will not reveal more because it could jeopardize the talks, but this kind of thing always works out.Espino laid out his plan if the government were to agree: “We would give the criminal organizations guarantees for them to integrate into the legal economy, and in exchange they will stop working on all the illegal activities.”Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied the possibility of a pact during his daily morning conference on Friday.Espino’s proposal would be the first official agreement of its kind in Mexico, but it is an established strategy in Colombia, where several governments have negotiated or tried to broker peace pacts with criminal organizations and guerrilla groups, with mixed results.During the rule of the PRI political party—Mexico was governed by PRI for 70 years up until 2000—the rumor of a truce between narcos and officials prevailed, leading many to think that Mexico was less violent because of those unofficial agreements, where each criminal organization was allotted its own territory and stuck to it.The bishop of Zacatecas suggested “directly speaking” with members of organized crime as a new means of trying to reduce the violence that has plagued Mexico for more than a decade."