Greece will restart crunch talks with its creditors on Thursday in a bid to save Athens from default, hours after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lashed out at lenders for rejecting his reform plans.
Talks were due to start at 6:00 am (0930 IST), a European source told AFP, after late-night talks last evening ended without a breakthrough as Greece's leaders rejected reforms demanded debtors.
Tsipras was due to resume meetings with the heads of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank - the ‘troika’ of Greece's main bailout monitors - at 1230 IST.
They will try to finalise a deal in time to have it approved at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers later in the day, and then rubber-stamped by national leaders meeting at European Union meet on Thursday and Friday.
Discussions have become increasingly acrimonious ahead of a June 30 payment deadline and yesterday Greece withdrew some of its proposals, apparently for the first time since negotiations began.
Greek Government sources said two were withdrawn from the list under pressure from Tsipras's left-wing Syriza party, including an unpopular increase in pensions contributions. The Greek side is seeking to offset the changes financially with other measures, sources said.
A European source told AFP there was "hope of an agreement between the (creditor) institutions and Greek authorities" from the talks between Tsipras and the EU-IMF. The Eurogroup of finance ministers from the 19-country currency union also plan to restart talks on releasing further financial aid for Greece at 1630 IST on Thursday after talks the previous night ended only an hour in.