Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe has asked Japan to play a leading role in negotiations with creditors of the South Asian country.

Wickremesinghe spoke to NHK in Tokyo on Wednesday after attending former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's state funeral the previous day.

The International Monetary Fund said on September 1 that it had reached a four-year "staff-level agreement" with Sri Lanka to loan 2.9 billion dollars on the premise that the country will restructure its massive debts owed to China, Japan, India and others.

Sri Lanka has suspended repayment of foreign debts due to its economic crisis.

The Sri Lankan president said the next important phase will be talking with the main creditors. He said that in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, he asked Japan to take the lead in the talks.

Wickremesinghe said people in Sri Lanka are "suffering a lot," and that the country needs to return to normalcy as soon as possible.

He said Sri Lanka and Japan have long been friends and he hopes work together and make the relationship even stronger.

Wickremesinghe also spoke about ties with China. There has been criticism that Sri Lanka saw its debt increase through large development programs mainly carried out by Chinese companies under former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He resigned in July.

The incumbent president said he will review the programs if necessary. But he said that at the moment, his country's relationship with China "has not had many major problems."