Lavrov sees some progress in U.S. on adoptions

MOSCOW. Feb 25 (Interfax) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes the U.S. administration in the past few weeks has manifested a wish to influence the administrations of the U.S. states to resolve problems of Russian children adopted by U.S. citizens.

“They have a wish to do it. We have seen some attempts to influence the administrations of the states. Under their legislation, adoption issues are handled by the states. Every state has its own structure for this work,” Lavrov said in a meeting with the students and faculty of the Diplomatic Academy on Monday.

The minister said Russia initially called on the U.S. administration to assume additional obligations on these issues.

“When we worked on that agreement, we wanted the federal government to assume additional obligations to ensure access to children who are in trouble in this or that state,” Lavrov said.

“We need to ensure that the U.S. authorities fulfill their obligations, which we are doing,” Lavrov said.