Argentine leader asks "to renegotiate the debt"

Berlin, Agency
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez made an appeal here Wednesday to global financial institutions to enter talks with Buenos Aires on the South American nation's sovereign debt.

After a luncheon at the seat of the German government with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Fernandez reiterated that Argentina "always showed its readiness to pay its debt" to the Paris Club, a group of wealthy creditor nations, but without submitting to oversight by the International Monetary Fund.

While Buenos Aires says Argentina's debt to Paris Club members totals $6.7 billion, those creditors contend the actual figure is $7.9 billion.

Argentina has rescheduled debts to private creditors and paid off its IMF loans in full, but remains shut out of international capital markets.

The Argentine president emphasized that after the international crisis of 2008 "new rules are required for the financial system."

Merkel, meanwhile, proposed after the meeting with Fernandez "the reactivation of the mixed commission between the two countries" that, according to the German leader, "has been halted for almost 20 years."

Berlin is the second stop on the Argentine president's official trip agenda, after on Tuesday she inaugurated the Argentine pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the South American country is the guest of honor.

After the meeting on Wednesday with Merkel, Fernandez was scheduled to meet with her German counterpart, Christian Wulff, at the Bellevue Palace.

Later in the afternoon she will meet with Argentine scientists living in Germany and with the president of the Max Planck Institute, Peter Gruss.