Mexico City ? While stressing the close relationship between the United States and Mexico, government officials from both nations failed Tuesday to make significant progress during an annual summit to discuss sensitive trade, immigration and border issues.

The 19th annual meeting of the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission, headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, ended Tuesday afternoon with many promises but little action on matters that have caused tension between the two neighboring countries.

The 9-11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., changed the priorities of the Bush administration, and progress on reaching a new immigration accord with Mexico will take time, Powell and Castaneda told reporters at the end of the summit.

Powell said that there was no “specific deal” on immigration or on Mexico’s growing water debt to drought-stricken U.S. farmers. But he said that ties with Mexico were at a high despite policy changes caused by 9-11.

Castaneda, who has repeatedly stated that the United States would eventually have to accept a more lenient migration accord given the reality of millions of Mexicans already in the country, took a less positive tone. “There is no plan, no time frame to legalize Mexicans (in the United States), nor is it foreseen. It is being negotiated, as it has been all along,” said Castaneda, one of President Vicente Fox’s closest advisers.