U.S. owes Moscow reports on living conditions of some 3,500 Russian children - Russian Foreign Ministry commissioner
MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax) - The rights and freedom of young Russian children adopted by United States citizens, will the central topic of a visit to the U.S. later this month by Russian Foreign Ministry's Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, Konstantin Dolgov, and Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Pavel Astakhov.
"We are working to materialize this long overdue trip to the U.S. to discuss a mass of outstanding issues regarding the rights, freedoms, and statutory interests of young Russian children adopted by U.S. citizens," Dolgov said in an interview with Interfax.
"We consider it expedient to hold meetings, first of all, at the U.S. Department of State, and Department of Justice, as well as representatives from state-level guardianship authorities, with authoritative human-rights NGOs and public organizations," he added.
Regrettably, "at this point, there has yet been no reaction to the latest (February's) note to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow," he said.
"We proposed a concrete agenda, which appears to be consistent with what we see as our priority task of conducting a constructive talk on this purely humanitarian and important issue, for finding mutually acceptable solutions. Among our main topics is: the U.S. owing us reports on the living conditions of some 3,500 Russian children; the lack of progress on so-called adoption exchanges on the Internet (...) and a number of other topics," the diplomat said.
