Contrary to a recent public statement by the former Italian minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli, Italy still hasn't reached an agreement with the Cleveland Museum of Art over repatriation of allegedly looted antiquities in the museum's collection.

So says the Italian Ministry of Culture, in a statement released Tuesday. The statement quotes Sandro Bondi, who followed Rutelli as head of the ministry, as saying that "no agreement has yet been concluded between the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Ministry of Culture."

Rutelli, Bondi's predecessor and now a member of the Italian Senate, told the Rome daily Il Messaggero last week that "the agreement with Cleveland has been concluded, I gave the documents to my successor, certainly now it needs to be carried out."

In response, the museum released a statement Friday saying that no agreement with Italy has been reached.

The museum also said that no timetable has been set, and that the talks with Italy continue with "a spirit of cooperation and confidentiality."

The culture ministry, meanwhile, said that it has committed itself to dialogue with the Cleveland museum in "a spirit of collaboration, with the confidentiality required in such circumstances." To read the statement, click here.

At issue is the fate of an unspecified number of antiquities that may have been illegally excavated and exported from Italy and purchased innocently by the museum. Italy has pressed such claims successfully against other American museums, including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Rutelli made his claim about the deal with Cleveland during a telephone interview with Il Messaggero last week, after visiting the Getty. He made similar statements in May, when Bondi replaced him. At the time, the Cleveland museum and the lawyer for the culture ministry both said that Rutelli's statements were wrong.

Commenting on the latest kerfuffle, New York writer Lee Rosenbaum, aka CultureGrrl, chided the "Great Repatriator," as she calls Rutelli, in her blog.