Mariano Rajoy Rejects Claims Spain Seeking to Topple Greek Syriza Party

On Saturday, Tsipras accused the conservative Spanish and Portuguese governments of creating an "axis of powers" to bring down Greece's recently-elected government down and to thwart Athens' attempts to renegotiate its debt bailout with international creditors.

MADRID (Sputnik) – Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Sunday dismissed the claims of his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras that Madrid and Lisbon were trying to topple his anti-austerity government.

"We are not responsible for the frustration of the Greek radical left who promised something it cannot accomplish, as it has been demonstrated," Mariano Rajoy said in Seville Sunday, as quoted by El Pais newspaper.

The Spanish prime minister also stated that creating enemies was an old trick which did not solve problems, but only made them worse.

Syriza won the January election in Greece, promising the voters that it would renegotiate the highly-unpopular austerity measures imposed by the international creditors to assure Greece meets its bailout conditions. Athens owes about $270 billion to the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

Following the rise of Syriza, over 100,000 people took to the streets of Madrid in an anti-government rally to support Spain's anti-austerity left-wing Podemos party. Podemos, considered a serious threat to Rajoy's government, has strong ties with Syriza and seeks to replicate its electoral success.