Greece says eurozone deal won time as cash bled from banks

By George Georgiopoulos & Alistair Macdonald

Greece's left-wing government insisted on Saturday it had avoided being "strangled" by the eurozone, which agreed in principle to extend a financial rescue deal as nervous savers pulled huge sums from Greek banks.

Athens said the deal struck late on Friday in Brussels should calm Greeks who had feared capital controls might be imposed as a prelude to leaving the euro. But some weary voters questioned what their new leaders had achieved in weeks of testy exchanges with euro zone hardliners led by EU paymaster Germany.

After often ill-tempered negotiations, Greece secured late on Friday a four-month extension to euro zone funding, which will avert bankruptcy and a euro exit, provided it comes up with promises of economic reforms by Monday.

"We won time," said government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis. "The Greek economy and the Greek government weren't strangled, as was perhaps the original political plan by centers abroad and within the country," he told Mega TV, without naming the euro zone hawks who forced the government into a climbdown at the Brussels talks.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has won wide support at home for what Greeks see as their leaders finally getting tough instead of going to Brussels cap in hand and taking orders from Berlin. But it was also under intense pressure at home.

About 1 billion euros flooded out of Greek bank accounts on Friday, a senior banker told Reuters, due to savers' fears that the talks would fail and Athens might have to halt such withdrawals or prepare to reintroduce a national currency.

This added to an estimated 20 billion euros ($23 billion) that Greeks have withdrawn since December, when it became clear that the radical...