America's Moscow ambassador embroiled in Texas adoption row

Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma's committee on international affairs, admonished US envoy Michael McFaul for refusing to attend parliament to discuss "the death of our children in the United States".

Mr Pushkov said on Twitter that the refusal showed the US was "not ready for serious dialogue on this question".

Mr McFaul, an active user of social media, shot back: "As a norm, US ambassadors to [sic] not participate in hearings of foreign parliaments. Do Russian ambassadors?" He then added: "Always happy to meet you and your colleagues to discuss all issues in US-Russian relations, including adoptions." The controversy is likely to be high on the agenda when Sergei Lavrov, Russia's veteran foreign minister, meets John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, in Germany next week.

Russia's children's rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, announced on Monday that a three-year-old Russian boy, Maxim Kuzmin, had been murdered by his adoptive American mother in Gardendale, Texas.

The case is highly charged because President Vladimir Putin approved a ban on US parents adopting Russian children in December, citing cases of abuse and the death of 19 adoptees in America in the past decade.

The ban was also a response to US legislation introduced earlier the same month preventing alleged Russian human rights abusers from entering the country.

Pro-Kremlin politicians and officials have rushed to condemn the alleged murder of the boy in Texas, whom the Russian foreign ministry said had been beaten and given powerful drugs for adult schizophrenics by his adoptive mother, Laura Shatto.

Police in Texas have expressed surprise at Moscow jumping to conclusions, saying that an autopsy on the toddler ? known to his US family as Max Alan Shatto ? is not complete and no cause of death has been established.

The local sheriff said on Wednesday that the toddler had been playing outside with his brother before he was found unresponsive by his mother.

Mr Astakhov has called for the dead boy's two-year-old brother, who was also adopted by the Shattos, to be returned to Russia.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568617/s/28cfe98f/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Ceurope0Crussia0C98856420CAmericas0EMoscow0Eambassador0Eembroiled0Ein0ETexas0Eadoption0Erow0Bhtml/story01.htm

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