US officials have refused to meet with a Russian delegation, which is going to visit the US for the purpose of control over how the rights of Russian children adopted by American families are observed, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for human rights Konstantin Dolgov said in an interview published by Kommersant daily.

"Pavel Astakhov (Russia’s ombudsman for the right of children — TASS) and I hope to go to the US together with an interdepartmental delegation soon," he said. "We still have a load of problems with the Russian children who have been adopted by US citizens."
The problem is the American side refuses to receive the delegation now.

"We received a notification that US officials won’t have meetings with us," Dolgov said. "We’ve been told there are no grounds for representatives of US state agencies to have meetings with us since there is no bilateral agreement on adoptions."

Still the absence of dialogue does not mean the absence of problems, Dolgov said.
"We’re offering dialogue and it isn’t necessary to have agreements for holding it," he said. "Far from all the (outstanding) issues can be settled in formal of the consulate convention."
"If the Americans really have nothing to fear, why should they escape dialogue then?" Dolgov said.

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