DECLARING & OPENING SURSORS

In ECPG I've declared a cursor using the following code:

1294 EXEC SQL DECLARE t_cursor CURSOR WITH HOLD FOR SELECT col1 INTO
:h_col1 :h_col1_ind FROM table1;
1295 EXEC SQL WHENEVER SQLERROR STOP;

However when I OPEN the cursor using:

1296 EXEC SQL OPEN t_cursor;

I get an error stating :

current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction
block on line 1296

According to the manual there seems to be nothing wrong with the OPEN
command. This is a bound cursor and for the life of me I can't see the
problem.

Thanks

Atif