Russian Official Says Adoption Ban Violates Treaties

The warning, which was made by Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets in a letter to Mr. Putin last week and became public on Tuesday, quickly widened a split over the measure at the highest levels of the Russian government. Russian lawmakers are pushing the ban as retaliation for a new American law punishing Russian citizens accused of violating human rights.

In her letter, Ms. Golodets said the proposed ban, which has already been approved by the lower house of Parliament, would violate the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which took effect in 1980, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which went into force in 1990. Russia is a party to both agreements, though the United States is not. She also said such a ban would violate Russian federal law.

The letter was first reported by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, and it drew a sharp response from Russia’s commissioner of children’s rights, Pavel Astakhov, a longtime advocate of restricting international adoptions.

“Russia will not violate any international legal standards,” Mr. Astakhov told the RIA Novosti news agency on Tuesday.

He added, “And we can see that children handed over to the United States are not protected.”

The adoption ban was proposed as a response to the new American law barring Russian citizens accused of human rights abuses from traveling to the United States and from owning real estate or other assets there. Critics of the Russian law say that it will most hurt orphans, who are already suffering in Russia’s deeply troubled child welfare system.

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said the president had not seen the letter, and Mr. Peskov expressed annoyance at having the government’s internal discussions debated in public. “It is not always pleasant to learn about official correspondence from the media,” he told Russian news agencies.

From the outset, the proposed ban has divided officials at the highest levels of the Russian government. Several senior officials, including the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who had a personal hand in negotiating the adoption agreement with the United States, have spoken out against it.

At first, lawmakers proposed a bill that would impose sanctions on American judges and others accused of violating the rights of adopted Russian children in the United States. A number of cases involving the abuse or even deaths of adopted Russian children in recent years have generated publicity and outrage in Russia.

The Russian bill was named for Dimitri Yakovlev, a toddler who died of heatstroke in Virginia in 2008 after his adoptive father left him in a parked car for nine hours. The father, Miles Harrison, was acquitted of manslaughter by a judge who ruled that the death was an accident.

Mr. Astakhov, the children’s rights commissioner, on Tuesday reiterated his criticism that international adoptions are overly driven by profit motives. He said that international adoptions in Russia alone are a $1.5 billion business, and that each adoption costs $30,000 to $50,000. The Russian law would bar adoption agencies that work with Americans from operating in Russia. Nearly 1,000 Russian children were adopted by parents from the United States in 2011, more than from any other country.

Russia’s upper house of Parliament, the Federal Assembly, is expected to approve the bill this week, which would send it to Mr. Putin for his signature.

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President of Iraq Suffers Stroke, Official Says

The development injected new uncertainty into the country's political future, a year after the U.S. military left. The seriousness of the stroke is unclear.

Although his political powers are limited, Talabani, 79, is respected by many Iraqis as a rare unifying figure able to rise above the ethnic and sectarian rifts that still divide the country. Known for his joking manner and walrus-like moustache, Talabani has been actively involved in trying to mediate an ongoing crisis between Iraq's central government and the country's Kurdish minority, from which he hails.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has visited the hospital where Talabani is being treated, his spokesman, Ali al-Moussawi told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Iraqi state TV also reported that the president has had a stroke.

Rifle-toting soldiers assigned to the presidential guard were deployed around Medical City, Baghdad's largest medical complex, where Talabani is being treated. A number of senior government officials and lawmakers were seen rushing to the hospital to check on his condition, though their bodyguards were not being allowed inside.

Saadi Peira, a senior official in Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan political party, said doctors expect they will need two to three days to determine whether Talabani should continue to receive medical care inside the country or he whether he should be taken to a hospital abroad.

Talabani's office earlier said the Iraqi president had been taken to the hospital after showing signs of fatigue Monday evening, and that he was being treated for an unspecified health problem. It later said tests have shown he is suffering from a hardening of his arteries, though it described his condition as stable.

Talabani's spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

An Iraqi Cabinet official said Talabani fainted on Monday and remains unconscious. The official agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details about the president's health.

Talabani is overweight but little else is known publicly about his health. Over the summer, he underwent knee-replacement surgery in Germany.

The Iraqi presidency is seen as a largely ceremonial post, though it does retain some powers under Iraq's constitution. The president must sign off on laws approved by parliament and has the power to block executions.

Talabani, a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, has frequently used the post to mediate disputes within the government and among Iraq's various sects and ethnic groups.

He has recently been working to resolve a standoff between the central government and the Kurds, who have their own fighting force.

The two sides last month moved additional troops into disputed areas along the Kurds' self-rule northern region, prompting fears that fighting could break out.

Talabani last week brokered a deal that calls on both sides to eventually withdraw troops from the contested areas, though there is no timetable for how soon the drawdown might take place.

Talabani met with al-Maliki earlier Monday. They agreed that al-Maliki would invite a delegation from the Kurdish regional government to Baghdad to continue the talks, according to the prime minister's office.

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Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed reporting.

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