Secretary of State Powell makes no progress on Peace Corps visas with Russian foreign minister
Read and comment on this story from the Associated Press that says that Secretary of State Powell has made no progress in talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in overcoming Moscow's unexplained refusal to grant visas to Peace Corps volunteer.
Meanwhile, the daily Izvestia quoted Sergei Sorokin, whom it identified only as a law enforcement officer, as criticizing the Peace Corps for sending "former cooks, cyclists and Mormon priests," as well as "former officers of the American security services" to teach English in Russia.
The newspaper also cited anonymous sources as saying that volunteers had violated laws, including one case in which a Peace Corps worker was fined for drunkenness. In another case, the head of the Peace Corps department in the Russian Far East illegally crossed into a border zone near China, Izvestia said.
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Powell makes no progress on Peace Corps visas with Russian foreign minister
By SARAH KARUSH The Associated Press 8/13/02 7:17 PM
MOSCOW (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell made no progress in discussions with his Russian counterpart in overcoming Moscow's unexplained refusal to grant visas to Peace Corps volunteers, a U.S. Embassy official said Tuesday.
U.S. officials are negotiating with the Foreign Ministry and the Education Ministry, but the visa problem -- which has forced Washington to cancel plans to send a new batch of volunteers to Russia this year -- remains unresolved, said an embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had discussed the issue in recent days, but gave no details.
The Russian government has refused without explanation to issue entry visas for new volunteers and also has refused to extend the visas of 30 of the 64 Peace Corps workers already in the country, Jeff Hay, the program's acting director for Russia, said Monday.
The Foreign Ministry has not commented on the issue.
An Education Ministry official said Tuesday he had received several complaints about the Peace Corps program from officials in Russia's regions.
"The authors of the complaints argued that representatives of the Peace Corps who gave English language lessons to secondary school students had no teaching experience and spoke very little Russian or did not speak Russian at all," Nikolai Dmitriyev, head of the ministry's international cooperation department, told the Interfax news agency.
"Not all native speakers are good teachers," Dmitriyev said.
However, Dmitriyev said the Education Ministry was not behind the visa refusals.
Meanwhile, the daily Izvestia quoted Sergei Sorokin, whom it identified only as a law enforcement officer, as criticizing the Peace Corps for sending "former cooks, cyclists and Mormon priests," as well as "former officers of the American security services" to teach English in Russia.
The newspaper also cited anonymous sources as saying that volunteers had violated laws, including one case in which a Peace Corps worker was fined for drunkenness. In another case, the head of the Peace Corps department in the Russian Far East illegally crossed into a border zone near China, Izvestia said.
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