Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama may discuss an agreement to regulate child adoption during Medvedev's visit to Washington, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs said.
The Russian President will fly to Washington for a three-day visit later on Tuesday.
"There is still work to be done... I think we have a basic understanding of the parameters of the agreement that we are trying to reach, but there are just some legal issues that have to be worked through in terms of how the process that we are describing in the agreement will unfold," Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington.
The third round of talks on a new deal on child adoption took place in Washington last week. The U.S. Department of State said the sides had not come to an agreement yet, but there was "steady progress" in the talks.
The first two rounds of talks were held in Moscow this spring. The U.S. side had already received a draft agreement from Russia, and returned an amended text in early June.
"I think we were very happy with the progress that was made. I think that the next step is probably that this will be a topic that is raised in some fashion in the margins of the upcoming discussion between President Obama and President Medvedev," Crowley said.
Last week, Alexander Zakharov, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry's department in charge of relations with Washington, said the agreement could be signed in the "next few months."
Russia is one of the largest sources of adoptions for U.S. families, accounting for about 10% of foreign adoptions, but the issue has become controversial in recent years following several incidents involving the mistreatment of Russian children in the United States.
In a recent incident, a 7-year-old boy was put on a plane alone to Moscow with a note from his U.S. adoptive mother, who claimed he was "psychopathic."
At least 17 children have died at the hands of their adoptive parents in the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the issue has seen repeated calls for a ban on foreign adoptions of Russian children. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Russia could freeze child adoptions by U.S. citizens until the countries sign a formal agreement regulating them.
WASHINGTON, June 22 (RIA Novosti)
