Buenos Aires, January 6 (RHC-teleSUR) -- Argentina's economy minister has likened the so-called vulture funds against his country and neighboring Brazil to a strategy of war in an interview Sunday.
Vulture funds are making "simultaneous attacks" on Argentina and Brazil, said Minister Axel Kicillof in his interview with the website Pagina 12.
In Brazil's case, he said, the Aurelius fund against state energy company Petrobras represents "a generalized strategy that uses the financial problem as a battlefield against particular political processes.”
"This way of acting: pressurizing, attacking by seeking whatever method to subject the government to pay them, isn't it extortion? This is a mafia-like tactic," added Kicillof. "The financial attack against Argentina and Brazil is a war without weapons and with well-defined policy objectives."
Kicillof said the claim that the aim of financial fund Aurelius, which is also prosecuting Argentina for its alleged non-payment of funds, is to "force the Brazilian oil company to default" after speculation about an alleged falsification of accounting information.
Regarding the case of Argentina, Kicillof noted that President Cristina Fernandez took a "wise and courageous decision" to not avoid debt and to display firmly reject the restructuring of debt payments in 2005.
"We want to meet all (creditors) but under fair and sustainable conditions for the country. In the year ended tried to take Argentina to default, bring down the restructuring of debt in 2005. Now we see the same players appearing, this time attacking Brasil" said the minister.