PM in Washington: "We take a steadfast position - debts to private creditors should be restructured"

"We take a steadfast position- debts to private creditors should be restructured," Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters in Washington following a meeting with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

"Significant amounts of funds received from the EU and the US are investment of these states to help Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression. Private creditors should restructure Ukraine’s debts, and this will be their contribution in helping the Ukrainian people," he stressed.

The Prime Minister said that the issue of restructuring of Ukraine’s debts to foreign creditors was discussed during his working visit to Washington.

He emphasized that Ukraine spends the same sum on servicing external debts, "contracted by Yanukovych", on national security and defense – 5 percent of GDP.

The Ukrainian side, he said, expressed its conditions and proposals to private creditors, "We expect that they will back Ukraine."

"The position of all parties - the IMF, the US Treasury Department and the U.S. Government - is that everyone should make their own contribution," the Prime Minister underlined.

The proposals made to private lenders by the Government of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed, are acceptable in terms of quotations Ukrainian bonds, "meet the market level and the fact that Ukraine is in a situation which is not comparable to any other - Ukraine is in a state of war with the nuclear power- Russia."

"There is no other way but to accept the conditions (proposed by the Government of Ukraine. - ed.), to restructure debts and allow the country to overcome this difficult economic situation," Arseniy Yatsenyuk highlighted.