Roundup: Cyprus accepts Greek request for short extension of assistance program

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has accepted a request by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for a short extension of his country's financial assistance program.

"The President of the Republic replied affirmatively to the request by the Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras," government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said in is twitter account.

That was the first reply to a letter sent by Tsipras to all other 18 Eurogroup countries and EU officials asking for an extension of a few days until the referendum of Monday is over.

The president's move came shortly after Finance Minister Harris Georgiades had said that the eurozone countries should have extended Greece's financial assistance program.

"Cyprus's position is that there should have been an extension of the Greek program... But the issue was not even considered by the Eurogroup meeting on Saturday," Finance Minister Harris Georgiades told the state radio on Monday.

Georgiades, who participated in Saturday's meeting in Brussels, also said that he disagreed with an option of harsh austerity measures and tax hikes as proposed by the Eurogroup's negotiators. "This is a recipe leading to a vicious circle of deficit and recession," he said.

Georgiades said that at the Eurogroup meeting he had a clear position on relieving Greece's debt burden despite the fact that Cyprus has already paid a high price in the previous write down of the Greek debt in 2012.

He added that at the time Cyprus lost about 4.5 billion euros (5.02 billion U.S. dollars), the equal of 25 percent of the eastern Mediterranean island's annual economy, as a result of the depreciation of Greek sovereign bonds by almost 75 percent.

This loss by the island's banks and the inability of the state to recapitalize its lenders forced Cyprus into requesting a 10-billion-euro bailout by the Eurogroup and the International Monetary fund, which also involved the resolution of the banking system.

"We stood ready to accept any arrangement which would further ease the Greek debt," said Georgiades, who was criticized by opposition parties for allegedly failing to support Greece during the Eurogroup discussions.

Georgiades said that in spite of Greece's current crisis, the Cypriot economy is not in danger of any considerable fallout, as its economy is now quite separate from that of Greece and is on a course to recovery. Endit