Amid a row after a 7-year-old Russian boy was sent back in Moscow by his American adoptive mother in April, Russia and US have started talks on intercountry adoption of children.
"The fourth round of the talks was planned for September, but we are meeting the US delegation on Wednesday already and will continue the talks on July 22 and July 23," Director of the children's guidance and social support department of the ministry Alina Levitskaya told a briefing on Wednesday.
"The Russian and US experts have managed to complete the work on clauses of the agreement where the positions of the Russian and US sides differed," Levitskaya said.
She expressed hope that in the following three days the delegations of the two countries would coordinate positions where differences remain yet so that in two or three weeks' time the text of the agreement could be turned over to the federal executive bodies of the two countries.
At present, the main difference remains in respect to the sides' position connected with concretisation of a system of control over a Russian child adopted into the United States. No such system of control from the municipal to the federal level existed yet, Levitskaya said.
{{/usCountry}}At present, the main difference remains in respect to the sides' position connected with concretisation of a system of control over a Russian child adopted into the United States. No such system of control from the municipal to the federal level existed yet, Levitskaya said.
{{/usCountry}}Russia had threatened to suspend all child adoptions by US families after the boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.
In 2009 a total of 3,800 Russian children were turned over to foreign families, including 1, 432 children adopted by foster parents from the United States.