Greece ‘won’t make €1.6bn June repayment’

Greece cannot make debt repayments to the IMF next month unless it achieves a deal with creditors, its interior minister said yesterday, the most explicit remarks yet from Athens about the likelihood of default if talks fail.

Shut out of bond markets and with bailout aid locked, cash-strapped Athens has been scraping state coffers to meet debt obligations and to pay wages and pensions.

With its future as a member of the 19-nation eurozone potentially at stake, a second government minister accused its international lenders of subjecting it to slow and calculated torture.