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M. Continuo

Highlights: Financial leaders meeting in Washington


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following are highlights of comments by finance ministers and central bankers in Washington this weekend for meetings of the Group of 20, the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance.

    IMF urges ECB to play bigger crisis-fighting role

    GREEK FINANCE MINISTER EVANGELOS VENIZELOS ON GREEK ROLE IN DEBT CRISIS:

    "What is important for us is to bring this vicious circle we are trapped in to an end. The harsh fiscal adjustment measures reduce the available income and demand. Rumors and the international mood are fed by internal insecurity and vice versa. We try to meet the fiscal targets while recession keeps pushing them away."

    "Greece feels the international uncertainty and knows that our partners must answer to their respective parliaments and societies, as far as the course and the outcome of the support mechanisms are concerned. But Greece is not the scapegoat of the euro area or the international economy."

    "It is Greece's final and irrevocable decision to do whatever it takes to fulfill its obligations toward its partners, toward the euro area, toward the IMF."

    "Greece is and will always be an EU and a euro area member state."