1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises against euro on Greek uncertainties

The U.S. dollar climbed against the euro on Thursday as investors were awaiting the future developments in Greek debt crisis.

The unresolved Greek drama continued to weigh on the market. Greece's Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas said Thursday that a debt deal with lenders will be achieved by this weekend to avert a catastrophic default and Grexit.

"I am confident and I believe that even a bad agreement will lead to better results than the lack of any agreement," Mardas told local media, while the finance ministry once again extended bank holidays and capital controls from June 29 to July 13.

The shared currency was down 0.6 percent at 1.1013 in late trading. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.19 percent at 96.475.

Investors were also digesting the Federal Reserve minutes for its last monetary policy meeting. The overall dovish minutes suggested that an interest-rate hike may be put off this year.

On the U.S. economic front, in the week ending July 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial U.S. jobless claims was 297,000, an increase of 15,000 from the previous week's revised level, according to the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1013 dollars from 1.1069 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound traded flat at 1.5361 dollars. The Australian dollar went up to 0. 7441 dollar from 0.7426 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 121.32 Japanese yen, higher than 120.64 yen of the previous session. The greenback rose to 0.9488 Swiss franc from 0.9452 Swiss franc, and dipped to 1.2721 Canadian dollars from 1.2730 Canadian dollars. Endite