THE Greek Government promised to do “whatever we can” to secure a deal with its international creditors this week, cheering investors as experts from both sides began technical talks Friday to lay the ground for an accord.

    Fear of financial chaos have seen savers taking their cash out of Greek banks. Banking sources said this was the reason the European Central Bank (ECB) offered more emergency funding for Greek banks Thursday until after crunch talks among eurozone finance ministers today.

    Greek markets rose strongly after new prime minister Alexis Tsipras, elected on a promise to scrap a bailout deal he said has impoverished millions, agreed to have aides sit down with officials from the European Union (EU), ECB and the International Monetary Fund — commonly known as the “troika.”

    However, the Dutch finance minister, who will chair a meeting today of eurozone colleagues, continued to play down the chances of a rapid conclusion to negotiations. “I’m really still very pessimistic about that now,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.

    “Greeks’ expectations of the Greek Government are sky high,” he added. “But the possibilities, given the state of their economy, are very limited. So that still needs a huge adjustment and I don’t know if we can figure that out as soon as Monday.”

    A spokesman for Tsipras, who had accepted Dijsselbloem’s offer of the technical talks during a first encounter with fellow EU leaders at a Brussels summit Thursday, said: “We will do whatever we can so that a deal is found Monday.”

    On Wednesday, eurozone finance ministers failed even to agree a broad common statement on how to maintain funding for Greece following the expiry at the end of this month of the three-year-old bailout package.(SD-Agencies)