In a sharp tone the office of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras replied to the letter of IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde that was uploaded on the IMF’s official website on Sunday evening.
“Nonsense is indeed the delay of the Review talks,” the PM’s office said in a statement issue don Monday morning, just hours before talks between Greece and creditors are due to resume with the mood towards the IMF to very similar to that of Cold War between USA and USSR.
“The deal should be closed immediately without unrealistic demands for additional measures, beyond those defined by last July’s agreement.” the PM’s press release notes.
With regards to “safety issues for the IMF team in Athens” raised by Lagarde, Athens comments “… Greece is a country completely safe, much more safe than in countries where the vast majority of the WikiLeaks leaks have taken place.”
The Prime Minister’s office statement is entitled: “The filibuster in the negotiations is actually nonsense.”
“The strategy of obstruction in the negotiations in order to create credit crunch conditions in Greece shortly before the British referendum is indeed a great nonsense. A nonsense that we all need to prevent.
The deal should be closed immediately without unrealistic demands for additional measures beyond those set by the agreement last July.”
Earlier, government sources have indicated that at first reading of Lagarde’s response to the Greek Prime Minister’s letter, Lagarde “does not dismiss” the apocalyptic Thomsen-Velkouleskou conversation and that “Lagarde’s reply shows guilt”. The IMF’s managing Director could not but protect the two IMF technocrats.
On Saturday, Wikileaks published the transcript of a conversation between IMF’s Poul Thomsen and Delia Velsulescu. The wiretapped conversation took place on March 19th 2016, when Velsulescu was apparently still in Athens and thus allegedly in Hilton Hotel.
Some Greek, German and US media express the suspicion that the conversation was wiretapped by the Greek Secret Service Agency (EYP), but so far their ‘suspicion’ is rather ‘assumptions’ than real evidence.
PS Hardly a government agency around the world would admit anything anyway. Unless public investigation of a scandal.
Lagarde is a useless bitch. It is a disgrace that her employment contract with the IMF was renewed: it just shows how low the standards are for top jobs, when politicians make the decisions.