Lavrov, Kerry to meet next week - Russian diplomat
MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) - The death of Maxim Kuzmin (Max Shatto), a three-year-old Russian boy adopted by a U.S. family, will be in a focus of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's negotiations next week, Russian Foreign Ministry Human Rights Commissioner Konstantin Dolgov said.
"I talked with Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov just before coming here, and he asked me to stress that this issue, primarily the death of Maxim Kuzmin, will be among the key issues on the agenda of his negotiations with Kerry scheduled for next week," Dolgov said at a meeting of the State Duma committee on family, women's, and children's affairs on Thursday.
Russia was informed by the U.S. about Kuzmin's death not promptly enough, but the U.S. authorities have reaffirmed their willingness to maintain cooperation with Russia, particularly the Russian embassy in Washington, to find out all details of the tragedy, he said.
"There have been certain assurances from the U.S. that they are keeping this situation under special control and will be doing all they can at the State Department to provide us with all the necessary information and do whatever they can so that this case be investigated properly," Dolgov said.
Kuzmin was adopted by a U.S. family from the same orphanage in the Pskov region where Dmitry Yakovlev was raised before being adopted by a U.S. family and die soon afterwards in 2008. Yakovlev's name has been given to the Russian law prohibiting adoptions of Russian children by U.S. citizens, which took effect at the end of 2012.
