Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he hopes Argentina will resume a “normal relationship” with the lender soon.

“I think we’re making very nice steps forward,” Strauss- Kahn said at a press conference in Istanbul today. “My opinion is that in the near future we’ll be able to resume a normal relationship with Argentina.”

Argentina has begun filing paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a restructuring of $20 billion of defaulted bonds, a government official in Buenos Aires said Sept. 29. The government has been blocked from international credit markets since its default on $95 billion in bonds in 2001.

Economy Minister Amado Boudou, speaking at the Group of 20 summit last week in Pittsburgh, said any debt swap with bondholders was required by law to be on more favorable terms than its 2005 restructuring.

Joyce Chang, global head of emerging markets research at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said investors had “high hopes” Argentina would announce some sort of normalization of relations with the IMF at next week’s meetings.

‘Willing to Look’

“The ball is in their court,” she said in an interview in Istanbul, adding that an agreement with the Washington-based lender was the first step to an eventual restructuring with bondholders. “Investors are willing to look at Argentina again if they do the right things.”

Strauss-Kahn, responding to an Argentine journalist’s question, said: “How do you know that your country doesn’t want to have an article IV?” referring to the IMF’s review of a country’s financial health that it requires of all members.

Argentina hasn’t had such a review since 2006.

The country’s defaulted bonds have more than doubled from 15 cents on the dollar in June as speculation mounted that the government was working on a settlement with bondholders and the Paris Club of creditors, with whom it is seeking to restructure about $6.7 billion in debt.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Istanbul at srastello@bloomberg.net; Joshua Goodman in Istanbul jgoodman19@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 2, 2009 06:03 EDT