Iceland’s prime minister has hit out against the International Monetary Fund and the British and Dutch governments for holding up recovery efforts a year after the country’s banking sector collapsed.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, the prime minister, said that it was “not acceptable” that the IMF had delayed a review for months. This review is needed before Iceland can access more of its $5.1bn (£3.2bn) international rescue package . . .

In written answers to FT questions, she said that the UK and Dutch authorities “cannot wash their hands” of regulatory responsibility for the failures of Icelandic banks that operated in Britain and the Netherlands.

She suggested that the UK was contradicting Mr Brown’s own principles by making Icelanders pay for the mistakes of a private Icelandic bank. “The British prime minister has said that it’s not the general public that should suffer from the wrongdoings of the banks but the banks should compensate the public. Obviously he does not count the Icelandic public in [that].”  05-Oct-09.

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