Russia blasts U.S. authorities for stopping diplomats seeing adopted child
MOSCOW. Dec 17 (Interfax) - Russia has expressed "deep indignation" at a U.S. court ruling that denied Russian diplomats permission to visit a boy who has been abused by his American adoptive parents and is in the custody of provisional guardians.
"The position of the American authorities that prevents us from having contact with Maxim Babayev, a six-year-old citizen of Russia who has been brutalized by his American adoptive parents and is currently living at the home of his provisional guardians, is bound to give rise to strong indignation," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on Monday.
A decision by a Florida court "to deny us permission to visit the child grossly violates the bilateral Consular Convention of 1964 and the Agreement on Cooperation Regarding the Adoption of Children, which came into force on November 1 this year," he said.
"This is not on, especially because it is not the first situation of this kind in the United States. The American side should at last make up its mind about whether it is going to be in earnest about its commitments under international treaties, including the new Agreement on Cooperation Regarding the Adoption of Children, which prescribes strict control of the life of Russian children in adoptive families. For this reason, we demand that the United States immediately grant us consular access to Babayev. Keeping the status quo in place may cast doubt on our further interaction in the sphere of adoptions," Lukashevich said.
