Surveillance row won't hurt oil talks:Mexico's PRI

QUERETARO, Mexico, July 11 (Reuters) - A key Mexican opposition party will not let a fight with the government over alleged state surveillance of lawmakers get in the way of energy reform talks, a senior senator said on Friday.

"We have to keep things separate," Sen. Manlio Beltrones, who leads the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the Senate, told Reuters.

Beltrones accused the government last week of collecting information about him to try and find his "weaknesses" and he asked federal authorities this week to investigate his charges.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon lacks a majority in Congress and will need PRI votes to pass a reform that the ruling conservatives say is vital to shore up the flagging state-run oil industry. Reform talks are centered in the Senate.

The PRI joined with leftist opposition lawmakers earlier this week to pass a resolution in Congress asking Calderon to fire the head of the government's spy agency, known as the Cisen.

The Cisen has denied spying on Beltrones, who said he had seen a document containing information compiled about him.

The PRI, which lost power in 2000 after ruling for seven decades, cooperated with Calderon last year to pass a tax law and has said it also wants to help rewrite energy laws.

Mexico is the world's No. 6 oil producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and a top U.S. supplier, but its output and exports are declining.

Calderon submitted his reform proposal in April, but leftist opponents reacted with sit-in protests in Congress and legislators have settled in for weeks of debates on the issue that are expected to run until late July. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Christian Wiessner)