(MENAFN- Arab News) BRUSSELS: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lashed out at his country's creditors ahead of critical talks in Brussels Wednesday denting hopes of a final deal to prevent Athens from defaulting and leaving the euro.

The anti-austerity leader flew in for a crunch meeting with the heads of the European Commission International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank before euro zone finance ministers try to thrash out an agreement.
But Athens said it had rejected last-minute changes made by its EU-IMF creditors to an eleventh-hour reform plan submitted by Greece this week to win approval for vital bailout funds.
Hardline Germany said there was a long way to go before any deal while euro zone stocks closed down over doubts that an accord will be ready for European Union leaders to rubber-stamp at a summit on Thursday.
"This strange position maybe hides two things: either they do not want an agreement or they are serving specific interests in Greece" Tsipras said just minutes before the talks.
"The repeated rejection of equivalent measures by certain institutions never occurred before neither in Ireland nor Portugal" he tweeted referring to bailouts to those two countries.
Officials told AFP the Tsipras talks in Brussels which were still going on after nearly six hours were "difficult" and "hard". The euro zone ministers' meeting could last all night sources added.
Greece and its creditors have been locked in a stand-off since the radical left Syriza party was elected in January with the EU-IMF demanding reforms before unlocking the last 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) of Greece's bailout before it expires on June 30.
But time is running desperately short for Greece which is set to default on a 1.5 billion-euro IMF loan repayment also due at the end of the month if it does not get fresh funds within days.
EU President Donald Tusk warned last week of the risk of a "chaotic uncontrollable Grexident" Greece crashing out of the 19-country single currency and possibly even the 28-nation European Union.
The new plans submitted Sunday by Tsipras's anti-austerity government aim to raise eight billion euros mostly through new taxes on the wealthy and businesses VAT increases and a cut in defense spending.
But in their counter-proposals creditors are calling for early retirement to be abolished and an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 67 by 2022 not 2025.
They are sticking to demands for a 23 percent value-added tax rate for restaurants instead of the current 13 percent. Athens is fearful of the consequences to its valuable tourism sector.
Creditors also propose to increase the level of corporation tax to 28 percent instead of the Greek plan to raise it to 29 percent from 2016 onwards. The current level is 26 percent.
And they want defense expenditure to be slashed by 400 million euros instead of the proposed 200 million euros.
Germany insisted that a deal was "unimaginable" without the IMF believed to be behind the harshest of the measures on board.
"Our impression is that we have a long way to go" German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said.
Euro zone stock markets closed down amid renewed concerns about a deal with Frankfurt falling 0.62 percent Paris losing 0.24 percent Madrid 0.82 percent lower Milan down 0.16 percent and Greece ending with a 1.77 percent loss.
Greece's banking system has been kept afloat by cash injections from the ECB as wary Greeks withdraw their deposits and on Wednesday it increased for the fifth time in eight days emergency liquidity funds.
The Greek government meanwhile warned that any accord would have to be approved by a parliamentary majority before June 30 which risks splitting Tsipras's Syriza party where many on the left wing view him as reneging on campaign promises.
Any Greek agreement will also need to deal with what comes next with EU officials suggesting an extension of the bailout until the end of the year followed by a possible third aid package to keep Greece afloat.
The two huge bailouts since the Greek crisis erupted in 2010 have left it with debt totaling nearly 180 percent of its annual economic output.