WOULD NAJIB HAVE THE CLASS TO DO SAME: Greek FM resigns to take responsibility

ATHENS - Greece's finance minister resigned Monday in what appeared to be a concession by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to international creditors after his resounding victory in a historic bailout referendum.

The shock announcement came as European leaders scrambled for a response after Greek voters said a resounding "No" to further austerity measures in return for bailout funds in a referendum that could see the country crash out of the eurozone.

"Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my... 'absence' from its meetings," Varoufakis, who had often clashed with creditors in negotiations over the past months, said on his blog.

It was "an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," he said.

The euro rose after Varoufakis's announcement, which was expected to renew hopes that the creditors - the ECB, the EC and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - could be persuaded back to the negotiating table despite the country's decisive rejection of the reforms they were demanding in return for the release of a final tranche of bailout funds.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to meet with French leader Francois Hollande in Paris amid a flurry of other meetings to size up the implications of the vote, a victory for Greece's radical left-wing Tsipras, who insisted it did not mean a "rupture" with Europe.

European Union president Donald Tusk said an emergency eurozone summit would be held on Tuesday.

With the ramifications still unclear and some analysts putting the chances of a "Grexit" at "very high", European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker was to hold a teleconference on Monday morning with European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, Tusk and Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

Meanwhile German and French finance ministers were set for talks beginning in Warsaw at 0800 GMT, while the Euro Working Group of top treasury officials will meet in Brussels. - Asiaone