The EU's ambassador in Reykjavik said Wednesday that Iceland could put its EU membership bid on hold instead of retracting it, publicly contradicting the Icelandic prime minister.

Matthias Brinkmann, a German diplomat, mentioned during an interview with Icelandic public broadcaster RUV the "precedent" of Malta, which joined the EU in 2004, after putting its bid on hold while a Euro-skeptic government was in office.

Despite a poll on Friday showing more than 80 percent support for a referendum on joining the European Union, the Icelandic government still planned to abandon membership talks with the bloc.

Less than a third (32.1 percent) of Icelanders surveyed backed the government's decision, according to the poll by market research institute MMR, published in Frettabladid newspaper. More than two-thirds (67.9 percent) said they want to put the process on hold.

Thousands of protesters thronged the streets of the Icelandic capital Reykjavik Monday to demand a referendum after the government said it was dropping its EU membership bid without a popular vote.

Police said around 3,500 protesters gathered outside the parliament in the biggest street demonstrations since the 2009 financial crisis to demand the government honor a May election pledge to hold a referendum on EU membership.

A man has been shot dead in Iceland's first-ever armed police operation, officials said on Monday.

With a population of only 322,000 and one of the lowest crime rates in the world, police rarely draw their weapons in the island nation.

Icelandic Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson said Thursday the island had suspended European Union accession talks indefinitely, following up on an election promise made earlier this year.

"We have dissolved our task force and negotiation teams, and there won't be any other summits," Sveinsson told parliament.

Twelve Germans, including seven children, were rescued off Iceland overnight after their sailboat took on water in bad weather and later sank, the coast guard said Friday.

None of the crew members was injured, rescue officials said.

Iceland's new Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was to take office on Thursday, heading up a coalition government composed entirely of newcomers who have never served in a cabinet.

Gunnlaugsson, of the centrist-agrarian Progressive Party, will thereby become at age 38 one of the youngest serving heads of government in the world. He will also be the youngest member of Iceland's new government.

Iceland's center-right opposition declared victory early Sunday in parliamentary elections, as voters punished the incumbent leftist government for harsh austerity measures during its four years at the helm.

It marked a return to power for the rightwing Independence Party and the centrist-agrarian Progressive Party, which both want to end the Atlantic island nation's European Union accession talks.

Polling stations opened on Saturday in Iceland, where the leftist coalition elected in 2009 in the wake of the country's financial crisis is expected to be voted out of power.

The right-wing Independence Party and the centrist-agrarian Progressive Party, who both want to end the North Atlantic nation's EU accession talks, are expected to form a new coalition.

You meet someone, there's chemistry, and then come the introductory questions: What's your name? Come here often? Are you my cousin?

In Iceland, a country with a population of 320,000 where most everyone is distantly related, inadvertently kissing cousins is a real risk.