Unsustainable Greek debt must be restructured: USA

The impasse between Greece’s creditors and the IMF over the need to restructure the country’s unsustainable debt has drawn a response from the USA, with the U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew stating that the debt should be restructured as soon as possible, noting that delaying it creates difficulties for the country that sustains it.

Lew was responding to questions during an event at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, where he discussed the US agenda ahead of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.

“The only consistent answer to a non-sustainable debt is its restructuring,” Lew said, responding to questions “The more you delay it, the harder it gets for the economy sustaining it,” he added.

Lew said the U.S. has long been involved in Greece’s matters that concern the economic situation and its debt.

“Thankfully, we are not in a phase of a direct crisis. The issue is what we can do to avoid putting ourselves in a situation of a crisis again,” he said, adding that the country’s last deal with its creditors stated that debt restructuring should be on the table and that it’s not sustainable.