Greece must stop being "festering wound" on euro zone - finance minister

LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Greece's finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Monday that he had agreed with British finance minister George Osborne that it was necessary to end the "pretence" that had led to Greece being a burden on the rest of Europe.

"(We have) a determination to put an end to the extended pretence cycle which has rendered Greece a festering wound on the side of the euro zone," Varoufakis said in a television interview with Britain's Channel 4 News.

"Even (Taiwan OTC: 6436.TWO - news) for Britain, which is not a member of the eurozone, (this) is a great concern because the deflationary crisis in Europe certainly doesn't augur well for the British economy," he said after meeting Osborne in London.

Varoufakis, who became finance minister on Jan. 27 as part of Greece's new left-wing government, said in Paris on Sunday that Greece needed to end its "addiction" to overseas borrowing and go "cold turkey".

* For more of the interview, see http://www.channel4.com/news/greece-antiausterity-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-video (Reporting by David Milliken; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)