US President Barack Obama has arrived in El Salvador, on the final leg of his five-day trip to Latin America.
Talks with president Mauricio Funes are expected to focus on measures to tackle criminal violence in El Salvador.
The status of the estimated 1.6 million people of Salvadoran origin living in the US is also expected to come up.
Along with some other Central American nations, El Salvador is plagued by violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking gangs.
Mr Obama is expected to hold a joint news conference with Mr Funes later on Tuesday.
'New partnership'
The US president is also scheduled to tour the National Cathedral in the capital, San Salvador, and visit the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
An outspoken advocate for the poor and backer of political reform, the archbishop was assassinated in March 1980 after celebrating Mass.
The killing came at the start of a 12-year internal conflict between a US-backed military government and left-wing rebels in which around 75,000 people died.
Mr Funes, who was elected in 2009, is a leader of the former rebel movement, the FMLN.
In Chile on Monday, Mr Obama called for a "new era of partnership" with Latin America, and stressed the region's importance to the US, but his tour has been overshadowed by the US-led military action in Libya.
During his visit to Brazil, Mr Obama praised that country's soaring economic growth and said its transition from military rule to democracy more than 20 years ago was an example that Arab countries could follow.
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