Miroslav Lajcak, a former foreign minister, had become one of a number of international figures facing pressure after the release of new Epstein documents by US authorities on Friday.

According to the BBC, Lajcak exchanged text messages about women with Epstein in 2018 when the Slovak official was in his second spell as foreign minister.

Prime Minister Robert Fico announced in a Facebook message late Saturday that he had accepted the 62-year-old’s resignation.

The nationalist leader said the government was losing “an incredible source of experience and knowledge in foreign policy”, adding Lajcak had “categorically denied and rejected” the allegations made against him.

He said media coverage and opposition statements on the case had been “of such thunderous intensity and tone that one would think one was talking about the impeachment of the president of the Slovak Republic.”

Lajcak was foreign minister from 2009 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2020. He has also been the president of the UN General Assembly, one of the key positions in the United Nations system.

US financier Epstein took his own life in 2019 while in prison awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His relations with other political and business figures have sparked worldwide controversy.