Greece cannot deal with its public debt through reforms alone and needs a significant extension of grace periods and longer maturities from its European creditors, Poul Thomsen , the head of the International Monetary Fund’s European department, told a news conference in Lima, on the sidelines of a meeting of the IMF.

“We think that Greek debt has become highly unsustainable,” he said adding that “We think that Greece cannot deal with its debt without debt relief. Greece cannot deal with debt just through reforms and adjustment,”.

He highlighted that IMF does not oppose to a different way of reviewing the sustainability of the Greek debt.

Mr. Thomsen also stressed that that negotiations between IMF and European partners have not started yet, so he cannot comment on Jeroen Dijsselbloem statements about capping Greece’s financing needs at 15% of GDP annually.