Buenos Aires, August 1 (RHC) -- Argentinian Cabinet Chief Jorge Capi-tanich said Thursday that his country was not in default, even though its debt talks with holdout investors had failed, Xinhua news agency reported.

Capi-tanich said: "The credit rating agencies, the financial agents and opinionators who are trying to say that Argentina is in a supposed technical default are playing an absurd hoax that is aimed at destroying the restructuring process of Argentina's debt."

The official said the failure on Wednesday to reach a deal between the third largest Latin American economy and the bondholders was partly due to the "incompetent" court-appointed mediator, Daniel Pollack.

He urged holders of Argentina's restructured debt to demand their money from the U.S. judge who blocked the country from making 539 million U.S. dollars of interest payments due by midnight Wednesday to other bondholders who had separately agreed to restructuring plans in 2005 and 2010.

He also indicated that his country might take the dispute to the International Court of Justice at The Hague in the Netherlands.