* Commodity-linked currencies hurt by IMF gold sales news
* USD extends gains after Fed minutes, data
* BOJ skips new initiatives, Shirakawa to speak later
* Euro remains under pressure across board
By Satomi Noguchi
TOKYO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The dollar rose towards a seven-month high against a basket of currencies on Thursday after the International Monetary Fund said it planned to sell more gold in the market, pushing down bullion prices and commodity-linked currencies.
The IMF said it would begin phased open-market sales of the remaining 191.3 tonnes of gold it plans to sell under a programme launched last year to raise new resources for lending.
The dollar held on to its gains after Wednesday's stronger U.S. economic data and evidence that the Federal Reserve had discussed strategies to withdraw monetary stimulus, while fiscal concerns in the euro zone countries continued to drag on the euro.
"The gold sale news is weighing on the Aussie especially against the U.S. dollar, which is seeing a biddish tone," said Jonathan Cavenagh, currency strategist at Westpac.
"We have a month-end target for 82 for the dollar index and given the sovereign risks surrounding the euro and the macro economic pulse getting better for the U.S., we would see every dip in the dollar as a buying opportunity."
The dollar index was up 0.3 percent at 80.581, not far from its seven-month high of 80.748 hit late last week.
A weekly close above 80.43 will establish an uptrend for the dollar in the near term. Charts show the next target at 81.47, which is the index's June 2009 high, and then 81.90, which is the 50 percent retracement of its fall from 89.62 to 74.17 last year.
Spot gold fell on the IMF news, dragging the Aussie and the New Zealand dollar along with it.
The Aussie fell 0.2 percent to $0.8960 while the kiwi dropped 0.2 percent to $0.7006.
The dollar pared some of the previous day's gains against the yen, easing 0.3 percent to 90.97 yen from Wednesday when it rose as far as 91.39 yen on trading platform EBS, its highest since Jan. 21, helped by the upbeat U.S. data.
The Bank of Japan kept interest rates on hold and held off on new policy initiatives, as widely expected.
The yen added to its recovery as the BOJ disappointed some who had speculated there might be further monetary easing steps.
Traders are now awaiting comments from BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa who is due to speak at an embargoed news conference starting from 0630 GMT.
Traders said the dollar was likely to trade heavily during Tokyo hours with offers by Japan exporters above 91.50 yen.
Weekly capital flows showed foreign investors bought a net 107.1 billion yen ($1.17 billion) of Japanese stocks last week, bringing their net buying so far this year to 1.71 trillion yen.
The euro dropped 0.2 percent to $1.3581, faltering near a nine-month low of $1.3532 struck on Friday, after losing nearly 1.2 percent on Wednesday, and it shed 0.5 percent to 123.47 yen.
It fell in the previous session after European finance ministers gave Greece a one-month reprieve to show its deficit reduction plan was being rolled out effectively.
Michael Hasenstab, co-director of international bonds at Franklin Templeton and manager of its $15 billion flagship Templeton Global Bond Fund, told the Reuters Dealing Room online chatroom that Templeton was underweight the euro.
"Greece's debt dynamics are currently non-sustainable and require unprecedented adjustments and this will present a meaningful challenge to the euro area as a whole," Hasenstab said.
The euro has fallen almost 5 percent against the dollar since the start of the year on concerns about the fiscal health of Greece and other euro zone countries.
Currency speculators raised net euro short positions to a record high last week, and the euro's bounce earlier this week was more to do with covering some of those shorts than structural improvements on the currency union's outlook, traders said.
The yen also gained ground on the crosses, with the Australian dollar falling 0.7 percent to 81.46 yen as the IMF's gold news weighed. The New Zealand dollar fell 0.6 percent to 63.71 yen. (Additional reporting by Anirban Nag; Editing by Hugh Lawson)