ATHENS: Greece was teetering on the brink of a default that could see it crash out of the euro hours before a key debt deadline was due to expire on Tuesday, as the country's prime minister warned Athens's coffers were empty.
Thousands took to Greece's streets on Monday night to support their government's opposition to the latest debt deal after a clash with the country's creditors forced a shutdown of its banks and brought the country close to financial collapse.
Talks between Greece's left-wing government and its creditors -- the "troika" of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund -- fell apart last week after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said any deal would be put to a referendum.
Tsipras sought to calm nerves on Monday by leaving the door open to talks, saying the July 5 plebiscite on creditors' latest cash-for-reform plans would leave the country "better armed" in the fight for a debt deal.
But the premier also made clear Greece would be unable to make the 1.5 billion euro ($1.7 billion) payment due to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday, the same day its international bailout programme expires.
"(How) is it possible the creditors are waiting for the IMF payment while our banks are being suffocated?" he said in a late-evening interview on ERT television.
EU leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Francois Hollande and Italy's Matteo Renzi, wrong-footed by Tspiras's shock announcement of the vote over the weekend, warned it would effectively be a vote on Greece's place in the euro.
On Monday, an emotional European Commission head Jean Claude Juncker bitterly criticised Tsipras, saying he felt "betrayed" by the leftist Syriza government's behaviour and adding it was time to tell voters "the truth".
"A 'No' would mean, regardless of the question posed, that Greece had said no to Europe," said Juncker, previously Tsipras's closest -- and sometimes only -- ally in five months of debt talks.
But Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis hit back, telling British newspaper The Daily Telegraph Athens could seek legal action to stop the country being forced out of the eurozone.
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