KIEV, Dec. 27 – Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Thursday tried to downplay the importance of cooperating with the International Monetary Fund and said Ukraine is in talks with undisclosed “other” sources of lending.

Azarov’s comments come in sharp contrast with other government officials and western analysts that believe resumption of borrowing from the IMF is a key to avoiding serious economic challenges.

“It’s not only the IMF who’s got the resources, as they tend to think, like there are no other possibilities,” Azarov said in a televised interview. “Actually, there are enough resources available in the world and we are working on attracting them to the Ukrainian economy on mutually beneficial terms.”

Azarov did not elaborate on the sources, but the government has last year borrowed $4 billion from a Russian state-owned bank and earlier this year approved borrowing $5 billion from a Chinese development bank.

The government also raised $1.25 billion from issuing 10-year Eurobond in November.

The IMF suspended its $15 billion loan to Ukraine two years ago after the government, led by Azarov, had failed to hike natural gas prices for households and implement other reforms.

Azarov sought to downplay the importance of the IMF by saying some of reforms it imposed on other countries, such as debt-laden Greece, are not working and even making things worse. He said Greece’s economy contracted and unemployment increased after the reforms.

“Ukraine has managed to do without the IMF’s loans for two years, and obviously will be able to do without them next year,” Azarov said.

Although Azarov said the government will try to find a compromise at upcoming talks with the IMF next month, his remarks suggest he does not believe that implementing the reforms is worth the IMF’ lending.

The IMF will send its team to Ukraine in January for the talks, and newly appointed Economy Minister Ihor Prasolov said earlier this week he was “confident” the negotiations will be successful.

“It is very important that we get positive signals,” Prasolov said.

Serhiy Arbuzov, the first deputy prime minister and a former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, has repeatedly spoken in favor of resuming cooperation with the IMF.

Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy resigned earlier this month from the post of the first deputy prime minister citing disagreements with Azarov. (tl/ez)