Washington, April 16 (DPA) The US will send a delegation next week to Russia to address the government’s concerns about adoption by Americans parents following an incident last week, the US State Department has said.
The announcement came Thursday as Russia reportedly suspended the adoption programme after a US woman sent a seven-year-old boy she had adopted back to Moscow unaccompanied on a flight with a note saying she didn’t want him.
Tennessee authorities are investigating whether she committed a crime, but the issue has sparked a row with Russia that US officials are seeking to resolve.
“We’re really going to Moscow next week to address what are serious and legitimate concerns about our processes regarding inter-country adoptions between Russia and the United States,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said.
Crowley said the US government has not been notified by the Russians that adoptions have been put on hold.
“We have not been informed of any change in Russian policy regarding adoptions,” he said.
According to Russian Television, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrey Nesterenko said adoptions are on hold until an agreement is reached to ensure children taken in by American families are safe.
The boy abandoned last week, Artyem Saviliev, who was renamed Justin Artyem Hansen by his American family, arrived in Moscow April 10 with a note from his adoptive mother that read: “I no longer wish to parent this child.”
Artyem, who was born in Vladivostok, was adopted six months ago by single mother Tory Hansen of Shelbyville, Tennessee, who said in her note that she was returning him because he had severe psychological problems and that the orphanage had lied about his condition.
