HAVANA (AP ) -- The father of Elian Gonzalez asked Foreign Minister Felipe
 Perez Roque in a letter published today that he try to arrange a visit by Cuban
 diplomats in the United States with his son.

 ``As you know, I have expressed on various occasions my profound concern for
 the situation of my son,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez wrote in a letter published in the
 Communist Party daily Granma.

 ``We are worried not only about his prolonged kidnapping,'' he wrote. ``We lack
 direct information about the concrete conditions to which he is subjected to in his
 daily life, such as constant pressures of all kinds.

 ``I beg that you insist with the authorities of the United States that they grant this
 visit,'' Gonzalez concluded.

 In a sign of his growing frustration, Gonzalez also wrote to Attorney General Janet
 Reno earlier this week, demanding that the boy be returned to him, saying he
 does not recognize the courts hearing the custody battle.

 Juan Miguel Gonzalez's second letter to Reno in as many weeks was published
 in Cuba on Tuesday on the front page of Granma.

 ``I formally object to the legal moves made or being made by those who are
 arbitrarily retaining Elian,'' Gonzalez said in the letter, dated Monday. In the letter,
 he said he does not recognize the jurisdiction of the U.S. court system, which is
 weighing an attempt by 6-year-old Elian's Miami relatives to block his return to
 Cuba.

 He also said he rejected the idea that his child be placed with an independent
 guardian while the case is considered in federal court.

 In Washington, Justice Department spokeswoman Carole Florman said the letter
 to Reno was received Monday night through the State Department. ``We're
 reviewing it,'' Florman said.

 Elian has been the focus of an international custody battle since he was rescued
 from an inner tube off the Florida coast on Nov. 25. The boy's mother and 10 other
 people died when their boat sank en route from Cuba to the United States.

 Elian is staying with his paternal great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who is fighting to
 keep the boy with him in the United States. Cuban exiles in Miami say the boy's
 mother died to give him freedom in the United States and the Cuban government
 maintains Elian is being improperly kept from his father.

 Lawyers for the relatives in Miami filed a brief in federal court on Monday arguing
 the Immigration and Naturalization Service cannot return Elian to Cuba without
 holding a political asylum hearing.

 U.S. government lawyers have moved to dismiss the Miami relatives' suit, arguing
 that they have no legal standing in the boy's case. The INS ruled last month that
 only Elian's father has the right to speak for the boy in immigration matters.

 In his first letter earlier this month, Gonzalez pressed Reno to return the boy to
 him. He said that in the meantime, his son should be placed with Manolo
 Gonzalez, another great-uncle in Miami. Manolo has said he supports the child's
 return to Cuba.

 ``I am deeply concerned and anguished over the present condition of my
 6-year-old son, Elian Gonzalez, unfairly and cruelly separated from our family for
 over two months,'' the father wrote in his first letter. ``Elian has been under
 constant harassment and pressure from politicians, journalists, lawyers, publicity
 agents and others unrelated to his family.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald