Minister says resignation offer was 'wordplay,' as furor grows over oil spill

Shipping Minister Panagiotis Kouroublis on Thursday sought to play down an earlier statement that his resignation over an oil spill that has sullied the Saronic Gulf's coastlines "is at the prime minister's disposal," as the main opposition called for him to step down.

"It took dozens of years to clean up the Saronic Gulf and just one of ineptitude for serious environmental damage to be done," conservative New Democracy chief Kyriakos Mitsotakis posted on his Twitter account while visiting three municipalities on Athens's southern coast that have been hit by the spill. "The least Mr [Prime Minister Alexis] Tsipras can do is accept Mr Kouroublis's resignation."

"It was a play on words," Kouroublis told the ANA-MPA news agency when asked to comment on his earlier statement to Parapolitika radio. "I said that my resignation is at the prime minister's disposal every day...

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