Obama welcomes Calderon to the White House on Thursday.

"It's a top priority for the US government to ensure that measures are being taken to protect our personnel," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told journalists in a phone briefing.

"That will continue to be a topic of conversation between both governments and will undoubtedly be a topic that gets discussed tomorrow between President Obama and President Calderon," the source said when asked about US agents' inability to carry their weapons in Mexico since 1990.

The ban on US agents carrying weapons became a topic of discussion again after the February 15 murder in Mexico of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata on a Mexican highway.

His was the first killing of a US federal agent on Mexican soil in 26 years, and raised the stakes for the US government in Mexico's increasingly violent drug war.

The two countries launched a joint probe into the killing of Zapata, 32, and wounding of Victor Avila, a second ICE agent, in the roadside attack in the central state of San Luis Potosi.

Both sides have since been active against Mexico's vicious drug gangs.

More than 34,600 people have been killed in rising drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when Calderon's government deployed soldiers and federal police to take on organized crime.

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