"I don΄t have a specific mission date at this time," IMF Deputy Spokesman William Murray said at a briefing, MNI reported. "The mission is going to return once we have clarified a number of technical issues. We expect this to happen soon."Murray said the sides have "differences on a number of issues - fiscal, structural and in the financial sector - that will need to be bridged before a staff level agreement can be reached, but there has been some progress at the technical level."
Asked about the possibility for a new haircut to reduce Greece΄s debt level, Murray said, "We do not envision any new debt relief discussions at this juncture."
That has been the IMF΄s position for some time, and Murray repeated the standard line that "Greece΄s European partners agreed to provide debt relief if necessary, and contingent with Greece being fully on track with meeting its program commitments."
This entails reducing the country΄s debt to 124% of GDP by 2020, and to significantly below 110% of GDP by 2022, he noted, adding "as long as Greece is delivering on its program commitments, the Europeans have said they stand ready as needed to help Greece hit these numbers."
The IMF mission was initially expected to return to Athens in mid to late January.
MNI΄s Angelika Papamiltiadou earlier Thursday quoted senior Eurozone officials saying the mission is not likely until early February after all
pending issues are agreed with the Greek government. (See MNI Main Wire at 10:01.)
The sources said troika inspectors would like to have a written agreement with the Greek government for all major differences before they return to avoid any further stalling in the negotiations.
MNI reported last week that Troika officials rejected the updated 2014 fiscal plan submitted by the Greek government as inadequate and that Eurogroup finance ministers do not favor any kind of political debate on Greece during their meeting Monday in Brussels.
A few days later, a top Greek government official confirmed the MNI report and added that there is a big difference in forecasts for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal gap. The official went on to suggest that the Greek finance minister would seek support to relax the troika stance on the negotiations.
The Eurogroup official said finance ministers are expected to issue a statement urging Athens to speed up and conclude the negotiations with the Troika when they meet in Brussels.