by Our Foreign Desk

SYRIZA government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis ruled out any restriction yesterday of access to bank accounts or the free movement of money if talks with bailout creditors break down and cash reserves dry up.

He responded dismissively to opposition claims that government inability to make scheduled repayments to its creditors could result in a run on the banks, followed by capital controls.

“Such scenarios lack any foundation whatsoever, are malignant and are used in a completely irresponsible fashion,” he said.

“The possibility of us having capital controls, or any other development in the banking system, quite simply put, does not exist.”

Mr Sakellaridis insisted that talks with bailout creditors would bear fruit shortly.

“That is the government’s intention and the target we have set. By the end of May, the start of June, to be able to have a mutually beneficial agreement,” he said.

“This government has a duty to pay its obligations both in Greece and abroad. The liquidity problems are known. We want to meet our obligations, which is why we are trying to achieve an agreement as soon as possible.”

Left Platform factional leader and Energy, Environment and Agriculture Minister Panayiotis Lafazanis had declared earlier that “it would not be a catastrophe to exit the euro nor a terrorist act not to pay the next instalment to the IMF.”

He dismissed PM Alexis Tsipras’s view that progress has been achieved in negotiations with lenders, insisting that Athens has never been under such “harsh blackmail” by lenders who want to “annihilate” Greece.