Sangiuliano says Meloni refused his resignation

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 5 - Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano on Wednesday night told State broadcaster RAI's Tg1 that he had an affair with an alleged advisor who he claims not to have paid or allowed access to sensitive information after coming under fresh pressure to resign.
    "We had a relationship, for this reason too I revoked her appointment" as advisor to the culture minister for major events, he told the news program. He said he had offered his resignation to Premier Giorgia Meloni but she had declined. Influencer Maria Rosaria Boccia, 41, with whom the 62-year-old Sangiuliano has admitted having a relationship, on Wednesday published documents on Instagram disputing government claims that she was never allowed undue access to events and security information as an alleged advisor to Sangiuliano and that no public money was spent for expenses connected to her participation in events.
    The minister said Boccia's role as advisor for major events was never finalized: "We were in a relationship, it was also because of this that I revoked the appointment".
    In the interview to Tg1, Sangiuliano explained that he had handed in his resignation during a meeting with Meloni on Wednesday afternoon but the premier had told him to stay on in his post.
    "I am ready to resign immediately after Meloni asks me, but I have reassured her with documental evidence that this is only gossip, which I realize is annoying, but never a euro of Italians was spent" for Boccia and "no reserved documents ever circulated".
    Meloni "told me to go forward and to immediately clarify the point of truth.
    "She told me: always be sincere and always tell the truth", Sangiuliano said in the interview. The culture minister denied that reserved documents for the G7 Culture summit scheduled to take place later this month were ever violated: "Absolutely not! Only marginal aspects of the G7 were released but no classified or reserved document", he told his interviewer, Tg1 editor in chief Gian Marco Chiocci.
    Sangiuliano also apologized to his wife, "an exceptional person" and to Meloni for the "embarrassment procured to her and her government" as well as to his staff. Meanwhile centre-left Democratic Party (PD) lawmakers in the parliamentary oversight commission on RAI issued a joint statement blasting the interview, "without the partidipation of the opposition, with the only voice of the minister".
    "Fifteen minutes of interview to a minister regarding facts on which opposition members have requested to report to Parliament are nothing other that a private use of public service".
    They went on to say that the "embarrassing story that has involved the minister, institutions and the organization of the G7 has so far not been clarified" and asked for a meeting with RAI's top editors in the oversight commission. (ANSA).