NEW DELHI, July 10. /TASS/. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) hopes that the internal political situation in Sri Lanka will settle soon in order to continue talks on providing financial aid to this country, according to its statement published by the local Newswire portal on Sunday.
The statement emphasized that the IMF is closely monitoring the situation in that country and hopes for a resolution of the current situation which will allow for the resumption of dialogue on an IMF-supported program.
"We are deeply concerned about the impact of the ongoing economic crisis on the people, particularly the poor and vulnerable groups, and reaffirm our commitment to support Sri Lanka at this difficult time, in line with the IMF’s policies," the IMF said.
On Saturday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Colombo, demanding the resignation of Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They stormed his residence and then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s residence which they later set it on fire. Some 45 people were injured in the protests. Wickremesinghe announced amid the riots that he would step down. The president intends to resign on July 13.
The protests sparked by financial and economic crises have engulfed the country since early April. As Wickremesinghe told TASS in an exclusive interview, Sri Lanka is hit hard by the worst crisis in modern history, and the island nation’s politicians cannot yet find parallels to such a crisis in this century or in the last century or the century before. According to the prime minister, the country is currently in the middle of the crisis.
Wickremesinghe pointed out that Sri Lanka was facing severe shortages of foreign currencies, fuel and petroleum products, fertilizers, food for some groups of the population, and medicines. According to his estimates, it will take three years or even more to recover from the economic crisis.