According to the BBC’s Robert Peston, “…for the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, it must have been personally humiliating to send his ‘please-send-cash-soon’ letter to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor”. Peston referred to a letter, published by FT, and reportedly sent by Tsipras, where the latter states that his government will eitehr pay this IMF in March or pensions and state-sector salaries.

Note: Greece proceeded with payment to the IMF…

“He complains that there is no sign, in the conduct of eurozone officials working on the new financial rescue plan, of wanting to make the promised new start in the fraught relationship. Mr Tsipras accuses them of trying to hold the country to a reform and reconstruction programme that his Syriza government has rejected, and which he thought had been dropped, too, by eurozone leaders.

“Which broadly points to the biggest flaw in the entente reached in February between Greece and eurozone – namely that the agreement they approved disguised a continuing and profound emotional and ideological gulf.

“Both sides in essence want the other to admit they were wrong in the past and have turned over a new leaf: neither shows the inclination to do that”.

According to Peston, February’s agreement widened the gap instead of bridging it. The mutual misunderstanding was apparent in what Greek FinMin Yanis Vroufakis mentioned in a blogpost, where he repeated his views on the inefficiency of rescue packages to substantively Greece — since they were meant for banks and investors rather than the Greek people, as per the “erratic Marxist”.