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MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials on Friday welcomed U.S. congressional approval of a $400 million anti-drug aid package that drops restrictive conditions opposed by President Felipe Calderón.

The bill contains another $65 million for Central America.

The few remaining conditions on the aid, known as the Merida Initiative, are respectful of Mexican sovereignty and don't require any legal changes, Mexican Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño said.

"The approval by the U.S. Congress of funds for the Merida Initiative is a testament to the mature dialogue between Mexico and the United States, and the mutual trust we have achieved," Mouriño told reporters.

He said the aid showed that the United States was willing to help Mexico in the fight against drugs.

"What appears to me to be most important, in the end, is that the U.S. government has finally recognized that this is a shared problem, a bilateral one," Mouriño said.

An earlier version of the bill would have required Mexico to change the way it handles allegations of human rights abuses by the military, as well as other oversight measures. Calderón and others had opposed those restrictions, saying they intruded on Mexico's sovereignty.

As passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday in a 92-6 vote, the program would condition just 15 percent of the aid on Mexico's efforts to make police more transparent, accountable and responsive to complaints, and ensure investigation of reports of abuse by police or soldiers.

Mexico currently has mechanisms in place to do all those things, but some have questioned their effectiveness.

Sen. Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised the bill's passage.

"I am confident that this language will be acceptable to both the American and Mexican Governments," Dodd wrote in a statement.

Both Mouriño and Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa stressed the anti-drug aid would include equipment, systems and training, not cash, and that no U.S. soldiers would be allowed to operate in Mexico as part of the plan.