Greek finance minister to discuss reforms with IMF chief

Washington, 5 April 2015 (MIA) - Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will meet International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde in Washington on Sunday to discuss a set of planned reforms that Athens hopes will unlock much-needed bailout funds, Reuters reports.

The unexpected meeting would be "an informal discussion" on Greece's reform plan, the finance ministry and the IMF said. Varoufakis is also expected to meet U.S. Treasury officials on Monday.

Greece is fast running out of cash and its euro zone and International Monetary Fund lenders have frozen bailout aid until the leftist-led government reaches agreement on a package of reforms.

Talks with lenders have been have been tense and slow-moving. Greek officials suggested this week that the government would prioritize spending on wages and pensions over meeting the conditions necessary to unblock a roughly 450 million euro loan tranche to the IMF due on April 9, making markets nervous and reviving fears of a Greek default.

Athens denied that was its intention, with government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis saying there is "no chance that Greece will not meet its obligations to the IMF".

Greece has not received bailout funds since August last year and has resorted to measures such as borrowing from state entities via repo transactions to tide it over.

After a first set of planned measures failed to impress lenders, Athens sent a more detailed list to institutions representing the creditors - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF - on Wednesday.

But the list arrived too late to be discussed by euro zone deputy finance ministers - the Euro Working Group that usually prepares meetings of euro zone finance ministers who can decide whether to grant new loans to Greece - at a teleconference on Wednesday afternoon.

EU officials have said that progress had been made in talks but more work was needed for a deal to be reached.

"It is necessary to restore the Greek economy's funding flow," Labor Minister Panos Skourletis told Greek Ependysi newspaper, accusing the country's lenders of taking advantage of Greece's funding limits to add pressure on Athens.

"Whether the country will meet its external obligations depends on our lenders' final political choices and stance," he said, adding that pensions and wages were not at risk.

Greece has its hopes set on another meeting of euro zone deputy finance ministers on the afternoon of April 8 and on the morning of April 9, although it is unlikely that a deal could be reached by then. The next meeting of euro zone finance ministers will take place on April 24 in Riga.

On April 8, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. It will be his first visit to the Russian capital since taking office in January. ik/11:13

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Erdogan to visit Iran despite tensions: presidency

Ankara, 5 April 2015 (MIA) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will visit Tehran for high level meetings on Tuesday, despite recent tensions over the Saudi-led bombing operation in Yemen, Reuters reports.

The visit has been on the cards for some time but some Iranian lawmakers had called for it to be scrapped last week after Erdogan publicly backed Saudi Arabia's operation against Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen and criticized Tehran for trying to "dominate the region."

Erdogan, accompanied by a delegation of Turkish ministers, will make the trip, meeting both President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to a statement posted on the Turkish presidential website on Saturday. Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency carried the news early on Sunday morning.

"During the visit bilateral relations will be addressed in all their dimensions, and there will also be an exchange of views on regional and international issues," the statement read.

The two countries have strong economic ties, with sanctions-hit Iran being the second-largest gas supplier to energy-strapped Turkey, providing it with 10 billion cubic meters per year.

However diplomatic relations have suffered in recent years, with particularly sharp disagreements over how to resolve the civil war in neighboring Syria.