IMF's Lagarde says Greece should not delay payments

By Anna Yukhananov and Randall Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the International Monetary Fund on Thursday signalled that the IMF would not agree to let Greece delay a scheduled bailout payment, saying the Fund needed to protect its sterling reputation as a global lender.

Greece is fast running out of cash and its euro zone and IMF lenders have frozen bailout aid until the new leftist-led government in Athens reaches agreement on a package of reforms.

That has raised fears the Greek government will not be able to make its next payments to the IMF, which total some $1 billion over the next month.

"We have never had an advanced economy asking for payment delays," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in response to reporters' questions on Greece's debt crisis.

Asked whether that meant the Fund would not grant a delay if Athens asked for one, Lagarde answered indirectly.

"I can assure you that (IMF) management will do everything it can to make sure that lending to the Fund is actually the safest lending route that anyone can go," she said at a briefing ahead of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings.

Speaking earlier in Washington, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the financial fallout from a potential Greek exit from the euro zone could be contained.

But he said an exit would present a political rupture that would raise questions about who may be next.

"It would be a catastrophe for the euro zone," he said.

Lagarde, who later met with Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, in the briefing said Greece and its lenders need to "get on with the work" of evaluating Athens' reform plans and coming to an agreement.

"To do that, it's not done by a political, last-minute accord," she said. "It's done by ... the tedious work of financial ministers, wherever they are, and the lenders."

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov, Randall Palmer and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Paul Simao, Tim Ahmann and Andrea Ricci)