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ATHENS — Greece on Thursday told the International Monetary Fund it would not make a $335 million payment due Friday, taking a little-used option to defer that payment and three others until the end of the month.
With that throwaway line in the early hours of Thursday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece seemed to indicate that meeting a Friday deadline to pay 300 million euros, or $335 million, to the International Monetary Fund would not be an issue.
Coming amid tense debt negotiations with the I.M.F. and European creditors, Greece’s decision holds political and financial-market implications that are hard to predict.
But like so many other statements by Greek officials during months of debt negotiations with its creditors — the other eurozone countries, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — there was enough ambiguity in Mr. Tsipras’s remark to leave everyone, including the financial markets, guessing.
‘‘The decision was intended to address the administrative difficulty of making multiple payments in a short period,’’ the I.M.F. said in a news release announcing the decision. Athens had no immediate comment.
Mr. Tsipras was replying to a reporter’s question about the payment as he left a five-hour dinner meeting in Brussels with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers. They had discussed proposals to unlock 7.2 billion euros, or about $8 billion, from Greece’s international bailout program. The parties reached no deal, but agreed that meetings and working groups would continue.
Earlier in the day Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the I.M.F., had said at a Washington news conference that she was confident that Greece would make Friday’s payment.
That outcome left open the matter of the payment to the I.M.F. due on Friday.
Still, as tough talks with the country’s creditors stumble and crawl, Greek officials have been suggesting all week that whether the I.M.F. would get paid on Friday would depend on the prospects for an imminent deal to renegotiate the terms of its international bailout program.
Over the past weeks, amid speculation that Greece could default on its huge debt and possibly exit the eurozone, the country has tapped the cash reserves of state entities to repay what it owes. The sense is that Greece has the cash to pay the I.M.F. on Friday and will do so.
Although the practice of bundling I.M.F. loan payments into a single sum during a calendar month is allowed under the fund’s rules, the last time that option was taken was by Zambia in the 1970s.
But as tough talks with the country’s creditors stumble and crawl, the suggestion by various Greek officials that the government might not pay its debts seems to have become something of a negotiating tactic, one of the last cards Athens has to play. Officials have been indicating all week that whether the I.M.F. gets paid on Friday depends on the prospects for an imminent deal.
The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said on Thursday that the Greek state “always aims at repaying all its beneficiaries.” He added that an agreement would be reached before June 30 — the date that the country’s bailout program, already extended once, is set to expire.
After the late-night Brussels meeting that concluded early Thursday, it remained unclear how close such an agreement might be.
All sides pointed to progress in the discussions. But differences clearly remained. Mr. Tsipras, in a news conference afterward, ruled out further pension cuts, noting that five years of austerity had led Greece to a “major catastrophe,” and that its economy had shrunk by a quarter.
“The proposal of the Greek government is the only realistic one on the table,” he said.
Details of Greece’s proposal that were leaked to the news media indicate some concessions allowing for tax increases but lack the bold overhauls to the Greek pension system and the labor sector that the country’s lenders had been seeking. The plan put forward separately by its creditors is said to include calls for further cuts to spending on pensions, tax increases and other painful measures, and to agree to lower annual targets for primary surpluses, the amount of revenue Greece is required to hold in its coffers after expenses have been paid and before servicing its debt.
Leaked details of that plan on Thursday prompted angry reactions from several government officials in Athens, underscoring the difficulty Mr. Tsipras will have in gaining parliamentary support for any deal that is reached.
In Parliament, the labor minister, Panos Skourletis, referred to an “undeclared war” that he said was being waged “by modern capitalism.”
Greece and its creditors worked on dueling proposals this week after a meeting in Berlin on Monday that brought together Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; President François Hollande of France; the I.M.F. chief, Christine Lagarde; and the European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi.
Also present at the meeting on Monday was Mr. Juncker, who as head of the European Commission — the executive arm of the European Union — is playing the role of broker for the negotiations between Greece and its creditors. It was in that role that he met with Mr. Tsipras in Brussels on Wednesday night.
In comments to Greek television on Thursday, Alexis Mitropoulos, the deputy speaker of Parliament and a prominent lawmaker of Mr. Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party, accused Mr. Juncker — who is widely perceived as friendly to Greece — of “delivering the most vulgar, murderous and tough plan when everyone was looking toward the negotiations closing.”
On another television station, Thodoris Dritsas, the shipping minister, vowed on Thursday that Greece would not give in.
“If what our partners want is full surrender, they’re not going to get it,” he said. “If Europe goes crazy, then the people can decide,” he added, apparently referring to the possibility of holding new elections in the event of a deadlock.
Many government officials have said that elections are not necessary, noting that Syriza continues to lead in opinion polls and would most likely win a snap election. But several officials have said that if Greece’s creditors insist on further austerity measures as a condition for a bailout deal, this would go beyond the mandate that voters gave to Syriza to roll back painful measures — and would as a result force the authorities to consult the Greek people again.
Some analysts remain skeptical about the fate of any agreement that might finally be hammered out. “On balance, the deal as it emerges in its current shape and form will be impossible for Tsipras to sell at home,” said a report by Teneo Intelligence, a London-based research group. Much will depend on whether the Greek prime minister can manage to secure further concessions, the report added.
Mr. Tsipras returned to Athens on Thursday, where he met with Mr. Varoufakis and Euclid Tsakalotos, the Greek official who is coordinating the debt negotiations. News reports said they were at work on a new counterproposal.
Hard-liners in the Syriza party have suggested in recent days that they may dissent if Mr. Tsipras strikes a deal that they consider a violation of the anti-austerity pledges that brought the party to power in January. The junior coalition partner, the right-wing Independent Greeks, has also said it would not back further austerity.
The political upheaval has spurred speculation not only about early elections but also about the possible imposition of capital controls and other measures on Greece’s struggling banks. These would aim to stop depositors from moving their money out of the country, or from squirreling their savings at home.
Prominent government officials insist that capital controls are not on the horizon. But Yiannis Milios, a member of Syriza’s central committee, suggested on Thursday that a daily cap of €300 on cash withdrawals could be imposed in the event of a bank run.
Mr. Milios, who is not a government official, also suggested that Greece respond to what he characterized as the “blackmail” of creditors by delaying debt repayments.
Deepening political uncertainty has prompted an acceleration in withdrawals of deposits from the nation’s banks. According to the Bank of Greece, deposits fell in April to €133 billion, the lowest level in a decade, after savers withdrew nearly €5 billion from the banks that month.
Greeks withdrew more than €30 billion from their accounts in the five months from the end of November to the end of April.
