Greek Prime Minister Tsipras Resigns, Triggering Early Elections

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras attends a parliamentary session in Athens, Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Greek lawmakers are continuing a debate in parliament to approve a massive new bailout deal after repeated delays ... Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras attends a parliamentary session in Athens, Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Greek lawmakers are continuing a debate in parliament to approve a massive new bailout deal after repeated delays over procedure and dissent within the governing left-wing Syriza party caused the session to last through the night. (AP Photo/Yannis Liakos) MORE LESS
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UPDATE: Aug. 20, 2015, 2:11 PM EDT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says he is stepping down and calling early elections after suffering a rebellion within his left-wing Syriza party over the country’ new bailout program.

In a televised address to the nation Thursday night, Tsipras defended his government’s negotiating tactics and said Greece got the best deal possible for its three-year, 86 billion euro bailout from other eurozone countries.

He said that now that the country has secured its funding, he felt a “deep moral” obligation to lay his actions before the judgment of the Greek people.

Tsipras was due to formally submit his resignation to the country’s president. Elections will be held within a month, with government officials saying Sept. 20 would be the likeliest date.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. This is gonna make a dreadful situation even worse, but I don’t see that he had much choice. He pretty much broke a lot of campaign promises.

  2. Not only campaign promises. He submitted a deal to a referendum, urging a No vote. He got the No vote by a large margin, then turned around and accepted the deal in even worse form.

  3. We spent a month this summer in Europe in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany. Croatia is not on the Euro, it is on the kuna. While not cheap, it was quite reasonable. Montenegro, on the euro, is more expensive. I asked some of my Croatian colleagues why they wanted to go on the euro, and got responses about how it would make people consider Croatia as a big boy, or something of that sort. A huge mistake, I believe. I hope they are watching Greece, Spain, Portugal, Denmark - they are all getting hammered by the euro.

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