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Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades have warned lenders that their demands in make-or-break Brussels bailout talks might force him to quit, the island’s state media has reported.
“Do you want to force me to resign?” the Cyprus News Agency quoted Anastasiades as telling EU and IMF chiefs as negotiations on the punishing terms of a deal to rescue the island’s Euro zone economy dragged on towards a Monday deadline.
“If you want that, tell me,” he told them, CNA said, citing sources at the presidential palace in Nicosia where party bosses are receiving regular briefings on developments in the talks.
“I am giving you one proposal, and you do not accept it. I give you another and it’s the same. What else do you want me to do?” he was quoted as saying, in a sign of high tensions and lack of progress in Brussels.
The President complained in particular about EU and IMF demands over the future of Bank of Cyprus, which he said would bankrupt the island’s largest lender, were they implemented.
CNA said that Anastasiades had a telephone call with Parliament speaker and acting president Yiannakis Omirou, who heads the socialist EDEK party, but did not specify whether he was the source of the purported comments.
The conservative President, who won an election just a month ago, has faced massive political Opposition on the island and daily protests against the terms being demanded in return for a bailout of up to €10 billion ($13 billion).
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