­­­Uncertainty shrouded Greek debt negotiations yesterday at the start of a crucial week after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras fired a broadside at international creditors that officials said bore little resemblance to his private talks with EU leaders.

The eurozone has set a deadline of Friday to conclude the slow-moving talks to allow time for institutions and ministers to approve a deal and secure parliamentary backing to disburse frozen aid before Greece’s bailout expires at the end of this month. Athens is due to make a €300 million repayment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday amid growing doubts about its ability to meet all this month’s financial obligations.

Officials close to the talks between Greece and the European Commission, the European Central Bank and IMF said no negotiating session was planned in Brussels yesterday and there had been no meeting on Sunday either. They dismissed market rumours of an imminent deal.

In a sign of in-fighting in Tsipras’ government as the negotiations near a crunch point, Greece’s nominee to represent it at the IMF was forced to withdraw yesterday following a backlash against her within the ruling leftist Syriza party. Hard leftists in Syriza objected to the choice of Elena Panaritis, a former Socialist lawmaker and World Bank analyst, who they said had supported past Greek bailout programmes.

In an article in the French daily Le Monde which appeared intended to show Greek voters how hard he was fighting, Tsipras accused the lenders of making “absurd proposals” and disregarding Greek democracy.

“The lack of an agreement so far is not due to the supposed intransigent, uncompromising and incomprehensible Greek stance. It is due to the insistence of certain institutional actors on submitting absurd proposals and displaying a total indifference to the recent democratic choice of the Greek people,” he wrote.