MOSCOW, May 2 (RIA Novosti) – An Irish parliamentary committee avoided pushing for a blacklist on Russian officials implicated in rights abuse following a warning that it could jeopardize a bilateral adoption agreement.
The foreign affairs and trade committee passed a resolution urging Irish leadership to express concern over the prison death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, the Irish Times said Thursday.
But it dropped its earlier plans to call for an EU-wide blacklist on officials implicated in the case, similar to the one passed in the United States last year.
Russian Embassy in Dublin said in March the blacklist could “have a negative influence” on the pending adoption agreement, though it later denied making a direct link between the two issues.
Committee head Pat Breen dismissed allegations that the Russian stance amounted to blackmail, while Senator Jim Walsh, who proposed the blacklist, called the resolution a “compromise,” the Irish Times said.
Some 1,500 Russian children have been adopted by Irish citizens since the early 1990s.
Russia banned US citizens from adopting Russian children after the United States passed the blacklist in December.
