Greek crisis stretches into weekend as deadline looms

Greece and its EU-IMF creditors once more failed to break the deadlock in emergency bailout deal talks, sending the crisis hurtling towards a critical weekend meeting in a bid to avoid a default by Athens.
Eurozone finance minister talks which were meant to pave the way for EU leaders to endorse an accord on releasing vital aid at a summit in Brussels broke up abruptly with no agreement on a Greek financial reform plan.
They will now meet again tomorrow, just three days before Greece is at risk of missing a 1.5 billion euro (USD 1.7 billion) International Monetary Fund payment that could trigger its exit from the single currency and even the EU.

"We have not made the necessary progress. In some areas one even gets the impression that we have moved backwards," Germany's hardline Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters as she arrived for the Brussels summit.
The 28 EU leaders at the summit held an unscheduled two-hour discussion on the Greece crisis where they and leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras were able to air their views, an EU official said.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, also briefed the leaders and said that lower-level negotiations between Greece and its creditors would continue until tomorrow, the official said.

"The institutions informed us that on a number of issues there is still a wide gap with the Greek authorities. In the meantime, the door is still open for the Greek authorities to accept the proposals tabled by the institutions," Dijsselbloem said.