Articles on poles in capital city (6)
I believe the answer is:
athens
'capital city' is the definition.
(capital of Greece)
'articles on poles' is the wordplay.
'articles' becomes 'a the' ('a' and 'the', indefinite and definite articles).
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (in a down clue, letters appear on others).
'poles' becomes 'NS' (North and South poles).
'athe'+'ns'='ATHENS'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for athens that I've seen before include "European capital city" , "Hen sat down in the city" , "Greek capital" , "foreign city" , "Hasten to European capital" .)