Greek president calls last-ditch talks to avert new polls

Greece's President Carolos Papoulias is to meet political party chiefs on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to form a cabinet after inconclusive elections that have raised fears of a Greek eurozone exit. "The president will summon party leaders in a bid to form a government that will enjoy the backing of the parliamentary body that emerged from general elections on May 6," the president's office said in a statement Saturday.
The leaders of the conservative, radical left and socialist parties, which occupied the top three places after the polls but who all failed to form a government this week, will see Papoulias at 0900 GMT Sunday. The president will subsequently meet separately with heads of smaller parties elected to parliament on May 6, including the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, Papoulias' office said Saturday.
If the parties cannot agree a compromise by next Thursday, when parliament is to be convened, new elections will have to be called in June. Papoulias on Saturday said there were "grains of optimism" that a cabinet could be formed between the conservatives, the socialists and a small pro-European leftist party, according to his office.
"Things are rather difficult," he told socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, noting that Greece needs to be represented at a eurozone finance ministers' meeting on Monday, a Nato meeting on Thursday and an EU summit on Friday. Outgoing finance minister Philippos Sachinidis will represent Greece at the first meeting, reports said.
Venizelos told Papoulias that the three parties - New Democracy, Pasok and Democratic Left, who have a total of 168 deputies in the 300-seat parliament - could form a temporary two-year government to keep Greece in the euro. The goal would also be to "drastically" improve the loan deal with the EU and the IMF, Venizelos said.
But Democratic Left has previously said it would not join a government made up of only Pasok and New Democracy that did not include Syria, the radical leftist party that opposes the 240-billion-euro (311 billion dollar) European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout for Greece. And Syria on Saturday refused to cooperate.
"This is an attempt to continue the politics of the bailout," Syria said. "They have the numbers, let them proceed and assume their responsibilities before the people," it said. Two new opinion polls have shown that Syria could even emerge as the victor if new elections are held in June.