Soviet Foreign Ministry expert: ‘We won’t get a cent from West until situation in country becomes clear’
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MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) – The USSR will not get any money from the West until the situation in the country is clear, a Soviet Foreign Ministry expert told Interfax.
“We won’t get a cent from the West until the situation in the country becomes clear," said the expert from ministry’s International Economic Relations Directorate, who has just returned from a G7 meeting in Bangkok and a session of the IMF and the World Bank. "We were told categorically that there would be no assistance until it is clear who they can deal with in the USSR," the expert said.
"We gave a long and tedious clarification of the direction in which our reforms are heading. If we raise the issue of assistance, it will be provided only for programs and reforms that suit our partners. Everyone was interested in former union republics forming an economic community, so that there might be 'someone' to deal with at the union level. But all meetings in Bangkok were over and participations were packing their suitcases by the time such an agreement was finally signed in Moscow last Friday," a member of the Soviet delegation said.
About ten months are needed to decide on the USSR's full membership of the IMF, he said. "There are no technical difficulties here. There are political difficulties. The IMF does not understand our political mess and wants to do business with a unified USSR as a subject of international law," the expert said.