Japan says no pact yet with Sri Lanka on debt restructure talks

 

Japan has not yet reached an agreement to co-chair a debt summit with Sri Lanka’s creditors, a government official in Tokyo said on Thursday, as the island nation struggles to find a way out of a crippling economic crisis. 

Sri Lanka has to renegotiate around $30 billion of foreign debt, including with bilateral creditors such as China, Japan and India, with one of them likely to co-chair the talks. 

The denial from Tokyo came after less than an hour after Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said on Thursday that Japan had agreed to co-chair the meeting with negotiators. 

Wickremesinghe’s office later issued a clarification saying Sri Lanka had requested Japan to co-chair the summit.