Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) are a small group of Galactic
sources which emit powerful bursts of hard X-/soft gamma-rays.
Many of their properties (spin period, large spin-down rate,
quiescent X-ray flux and also the emission of bursts) are
similar to those of the Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs),
suggesting the existence of a link between the two groups. Over
the last few years observations provided increasing evidence
that SGRs and AXPs are magnetars, i.e. ultra-magnetized neutron
stars with surface field in excess of 1e14 G. In this talk I
will review the properties of persistent X-ray emission from
SGRs/AXPs and show how the magnetar model, originally introduced
to explain the bursts, may also successfully account for their
steady X-ray flux. In particular, I will focus on the role of
the "twisted magnetosphere" in shaping the X-ray spectrum and
present synthetic spectra calculated with a new magnetic
montecarlo radiative code.