Varoufakis is saying yes to Greece's climbdown deal

Greece's celebrity ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is backing the government's new bailout deal, according to two tweets on Friday.

Jean Quatremer, Brussels correspondent for French newspaper La Liberation, had earlier suggested that Varoufakis might not support the government position.

On Friday afternoon Quatremer tweeted that Varoufakis had called on Syriza to reject his former boss, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' proposals at an internal party meeting.

Varoufakis was widely viewed as an impediment to the negotiations, and some participants complained about his conduct at the talks. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that his replacement, Oxford-educated economist Euclid Tsakalotos, was more "conventional".

Despite backing the deal, Varoufakis tweeted that he won't be there to vote for it, due to family commitments.

The deal now suggested contains most of what EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker proposed at the end of June, including painful reforms to the pension system, in exchange for three years of bailout financing. It looks like it'll go ahead despite the July 5 referendum in which Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected a very similar deal.

Despite the reported opposition, Reuters suggests only three Syriza members of parliament are openly opposed to the agreement that's been tabled by Tsakalotos.

Here's the statement they issued on Friday:

The government even at this hour can and should respond to the institutions' blackmail with the dilemma: either a programme without new austerity, with funding and a debt write-off or an exit from the euro and suspension of payments of the unjust and non viable debt.

There will undoubtedly be some opposition from within the government, but it seems that the majority of Syriza will not be opposing Tsipras move. According to Paul Mason, the international journalist with the best links to the party's left, there's unlikely to be any big rebellion even from the hardliners.

The deal's not done yet - but if it's acceptable to Europe and internal opposition has suddenly become muted, it finally looks like it may happen.