ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government will not cooperate with the EU and IMF mission bankrolling the country and will not seek an extension to the bailout program, its finance minister said on Friday. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the euro zone finance ministers' group who is in Athens for talks with the new government, said the two sides would decide what would happen next before the program ends on Feb. 28. "This platform enabled us to win the confidence of the Greek people," Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters after their meeting. "Our first action as a government will not be to reject the rationale of questioning this program through a request to extend it." Varoufakis said he had assured Dijsselbloem that Athens planned to implement reforms to make the economy more competitive and have balanced budgets but that it would not accept a "self-fed crisis" of deflation and non-viable debt. In turn, Dijsselbloem said he had told the new government to respect the terms of the existing agreement between Greece and the euro zone and warned against taking unilateral steps, saying it was important not to reverse progress made so far. He said continuing support from Europe depended on Greece respecting its obligations and it was up to Athens to decide its position before moving forward jointly with the euro zone. (Writing by Deepa Babington)Join the conversation about this story »
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