Cyprus warns of possible exit from eurozone

Cyprus may be forced to leave the eurozone if international lenders tried to impose too harsh measures on it, including a haircut on bank deposits, a close associate of President Nicos Anastasiades has warned. "A possible insistence on a haircut of deposits in Cypriot banks will lead Cyprus to exiting the eurozone," Averof Neofytou said after meeting with an International Monetary Fund official in Washington. Neofytou is a chairman at the Cyprus House of Representatives and vice-president of the ruling Democratic Rally party, deputizing for Anastasiades as party leader following his election in last month's presidential vote. The Cyprus News Agency reported Neofytou also discussed the issue with Robert Menendez, committee chairman on foreign relations of the U.S. Senate, among other officials. The warning came as president Anastasiades met with troika technocrats in Nicosia to discuss finalizing a bailout deal Cyprus requested last year to avoid a disorderly default on its commitments. Technocrats from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, collectively known as the troika, are engaged in what are believed to be final discussions on a 17 billion euros (22 billion U.S. dollars) bailout. However, efforts to finalize the deal have been complicated by demands by some German, Dutch and Finnish politicians to force a loss on people with deposits in Cypriot banks, many of them Russian and British businessmen. Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris, back from a Eurogroup meeting in Brussels where it was decided a deal would be endorsed by the end of March, earlier said suggestions about a haircut on deposits as "a stupid idea" that would be catastrophic for Cyprus and for the eurozone. Other thorny issues discussed by the troika technocrats include possible privatization of state assets in telecommunications, ports and other public utility companies and carrying out a survey of anti-money laundering legislation and practices.