Tsipras urges EU leaders to reach deal with Athens

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Sunday Greece should not be blamed for not yet reaching a deal with its creditors and called on fellow European leaders to bypass technical talks and come to a political solution.

Athens and its creditors were continuing talks on a cash-for-reforms deal but were expected to miss a self-imposed Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement to unlock aid, sources close to the talks said.

"If we have not reached an agreement with our partners, it's not because of our intransigence or incomprehensible positions from the Greek side,» Tsipras said in a column published on French daily Le Monde's website.

"It is rather because of the obsession of some institutional representatives who insist on unreasonable solutions and are being indifferent to the democratic result of recent Greek elections,» he wrote, adding European and international institutions were ready to be flexible.

He said the Greek government had been ready to make compromises, for instance on privatisations, despite its party's ideological opposition to them.

Tsipras also responded to criticism that Greece was holding up a deal with the lenders because it resisted pension reforms and insisted on restoring collective bargaining.

He said Greece has committed to integrating pension funds and cutting down on early retirement but opposed any further cuts in pensions which have been slashed by up to 48 percent in the last five years.

"Currently, 44.5 percent of pensioners receive a pension under the fixed threshold of relative poverty while approximately 23.1 percent of pensioners, according to data from Eurostat, live in danger of poverty and social exclusion,» he said.

"These numbers...cannot be tolerated - not simply in...