Tsipras: New Greek Loan to Be Used Exclusively for Debt Payment

The new loan Greece has requested from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be used exclusively to cover the country's debt obligations, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Tuesday in a letter to Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In the letter, Tsipras proposed a two-year agreement with the ESM, the crisis resolution fund for eurozone countries, to cover the country's financial needs.

"The loan will be used exclusively to meet the debt service payments of Greece's external and internal debt obligations," the letter obtained by the Politico reads.

Dijsselbloem responded to Tsipras' request in a tweet, saying that an extraordinary Eurogroup teleconference will be held in Brussels at 7 p.m. local time (17:00 GMT) time to discuss the Greek request.

Greece's aggregate debt exceeds $350 billion, of which $270 billion is owed to the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission.

By midnight on Tuesday, Greece was due to transfer the next $1.7-billion repayment to the IMF, before the current aid package expires.

However, earlier in the day Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said that Greece would not make the IMF payment.