IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said the Fund considers that debt relief measures extended to bailout-dependent Greece are not enough, although he admitted that some progress has been made recently.
Speaking during a regular press briefing in Washington D.C. on Thursday, Rice said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) remains steadfast in its position over the Greek debt issue. The Fund has consistently called for enough debt relief to ensure that Greece's external liabilities are sustainable in the long term.
"...we see this as a constructive and a principled approach ... the IMF is sticking to its principles, and sticking to what it has said all along on Greece in terms of these two legs of the program... " Rice told reporters, adding:
"Let me put it this way, this approval in principle does not in any no ways signal that the work on debt relief is going by the wayside or on a slower track, not at all. The managing director, as I mentioned, urged the creditors to redouble their efforts, to reach convergence as quickly as possible; we have made some progress on debt relief, but we don't think we're there yet, it's not enough."
